The largest Democratic super PAC is releasing a new ad in key battleground states using President Trump’s campaign slogan to say he made “America first” in coronavirus deaths.
“Donald Trump said he would put America first, and now he has,” the narrator in the Priorities USA ad states over footage of Trump at his daily coronavirus briefings.
“The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases. More than 50,000 Americans dead, twice as many deaths as any other country. Over 26 million people have lost their jobs and it’s only getting worse. Downplaying the threats, ignoring the experts, refusing to prepare. Donald Trump is failing America,” it states.
More people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. than in any other country, although health officials are deeply skeptical of the number of deaths reported by the government in China, where the disease originated.
On a case fatality basis, which measures the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases, European countries have experienced a far worse rate, with Belgium experiencing a case fatality rate of 15.4 percent, followed by France at 14.1 percent, Italy at 13.5 percent, and the United Kingdom at 13.4 percent, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. case fatality rate stands at 5.7 percent.
“The ad implicitly takes China’s word about its death totals, which tells you all you need to know,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.
“Joe Biden’s allies will side with China and swallow its communist propaganda if it gives them a way to attack the president of the United States,” he said. “President Trump acted early and decisively in restricting travel from China in January, a bold move that Biden called ‘xenophobic’ and ‘fearmongering.’ The President is leading the nation in the war against the coronavirus and Joe Biden has decided to be the opposition in that war.”
The Priorities USA ad will run in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and is part of an existing $65 million ad reservation that extends between now and Election Day. All told, Priorities USA has a budget of about $200 million to defeat Trump and elect former Vice President Joe Biden in November.
New polls show that Trump’s job approval rating has receded some since he experienced a bounce in the period immediate after the coronavirus outbreak began.
New polls from Michigan and Pennsylvania show that voters trust the Democratic governors in those states to handle the response to the virus more than they trust Trump.
The president won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2016, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the former “blue wall” states in decades.
If the entire 2016 electoral map stays the same but Biden wins back those three states, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee would win the White House.
— Updated at 4:10 p.m.