Atlanta is target of President Biden’s first-ever reelection campaign ad

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - One day after his reelection announcement, President Joe Biden’s campaign released its first ad of the 2024 election cycle, hitting Atlanta and Georgia along with five other battleground states.

“Flag” is the first of two ads in the two-week, seven figure buy, the campaign said. Besides Atlanta, the ad will run in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Detroit, Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo, Lansing and Flint-Saginaw, Michigan; Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Wilkes-Barre-Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Milwaukee, Green Bay and Madison, Wisconsin.

Georgia was featured in Biden’s reelection announcement video released early Tuesday morning, but from two diametric opposites of the political spectrum.

The video features snippets and snapshots from a wide spectrum of the U.S. and Americana, with some images popping up for less than one second. One of those brief images was of northwest Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, presumably taken from Biden’s most recent state of the union address.

Greene was wearing a white, fur-colored jacket, which she wore during Biden’s speech back back in February. Greene famously called Biden a “liar” during the speech, drawing national praise from conservatives and derision from progressives.

Greene’s image was used in a series of snapshot clips designed to portray a bleak, dystopian view of America, with her image interspersed among photos of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot.

Greene, an unabashed supporter of Donald Trump, thus far has been the only Georgia congressional representative to endorse the nation’s 45th president in his 2024 campaign to retake the White House.

Another image of Georgia was used a bit more flatteringly: a several-stories high mural of John Lewis on the side of a building on Auburn Avenue in downtown Atlanta.

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Biden’s official announcement came in a three-minute video released on the four-year anniversary of when Biden declared for the White House in 2019, promising to heal the “soul of the nation” amid Trump’s presidency.

Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term, is betting his first-term legislative achievements and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will count for more than concerns over his age. He faces a smooth path to winning his party’s nomination, but he’s still set for a hard-fought struggle to retain the presidency in a bitterly divided nation.

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In his first public appearance Tuesday since the announcement, Biden offered a preview of how he plans to navigate the dual roles of president and presidential candidate, using a speech to building trades union members to highlight his accomplishments and undercut his GOP rivals, while showing voters he remained focused on his day job.

Greeted by a crowd of building trades union members — a key base of Democratic support — with “Let’s Go Joe” chants, Biden touted the construction jobs created since he took office that are supported by the legislation he signed into law.

“I said we are in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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