Biden heads to Wisconsin to laud a new Microsoft facility, meet voters — and troll Trump
WASHINGTON — Rushing into yet another battleground state on Wednesday, President Joe Biden continues to push a contrast with Donald Trump on economic policy as his own reelection campaign prepares a new $14 million advertising blitz aimed in part at Black, Latino and Asian American voters.
Biden will travel to Racine, Wisconsin, where he will highlight a decision by Microsoft to build a $3.3 billion data center that is expected to create about 2,000 jobs. It’s also the same place where Trump touted with great fanfare a plan by Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn to build a $10 billion factory that would eventually employ 10,000 people. Only it is never completed.
Aware of that history, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press that Microsoft had an “unwavering commitment to underpromising and overdelivering” and praised the Biden administration and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for the economic policy that set the stage for the developments announced on Wednesday.
Trump’s campaign did not address Foxconn, but the former president often says that the economy was in much better shape when he was in power and that this will be the case again if he wins.
Meanwhile, Biden’s reelection team is sharpening their reach among minority voters on air, with a new seven-figure digital and television advertising campaign launching Wednesday that follows the $30 million effort that began after his State of the Union address early March. One of the ads part of the new campaign will also be released Wednesday and focuses on Trump’s failed but determined effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
After his speech, Biden will make a campaign stop to speak to black voters about the stakes of the November elections.
The Biden campaign is looking to capitalize on the fundraising advantage it has enjoyed over Trump, hoping to bury them in the airwaves while amassing significant resources on the ground in key battleground states to force Republicans much later to catch up during the year.
“Just as important as our own historic investments is the complete lack of investment on the other side,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden campaign, told reporters. “Trump’s paid media strategy can only be described as bloodless and inefficient.”
A significant portion of the $14 million campaign that begins Wednesday will go to Black and Latinx media, as well as Asian American print and radio, according to the campaign. Campaign officials also said Biden will continue to do targeted interviews with media outlets that primarily serve minority audiences, while the campaign plans to launch more coalition groups in May that target specific voter blocs. So far, the Biden campaign has created groups to engage women, Latinos and educators.
By the end of May, Biden’s reelection effort will include more than 200 offices and about 500 employees, according to Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battlefield director. These figures include offices in areas that have traditionally not seen investment by Democrats in Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.
“We show up in the community every day and try to earn every vote,” said Quentin Fulks, the Biden campaign’s top deputy campaign manager. “Donald Trump and his team are not doing any of that.”
Although Biden’s comments in Racine are part of a formal event at the White House, Fulks said the stop “will highlight the stark contrast between the progress he has made for Wisconsin families and the failures of Donald Trump.”
Microsoft’s Smith said the first phase of the new data center complex will create 2,300 jobs by the end of the year, mainly in the construction sector.
While Microsoft has ramped up construction of AI-powered data centers around the world, “this one is more important than many because there is more land and ultimately access to power available,” said Smith, who lived in the area where the center is being built. built as a child.
But once up and running, even the most powerful data centers typically employ a relatively small group of full-time employees to oversee them. Microsoft will have about 500, drawn from highly skilled workers in the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor, Smith said.
However, he argued that the bigger impact for the region would be in the technology itself and in broader investments in preparing the Upper Midwest for its impact.
“This is about the competitiveness of manufacturing in places like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Smith said.
Racine County is a critical location; all but five of the 33 winning presidential candidates wore it. Trump is one of the five; he won Racine County, but lost the election. Biden was the first Democrat since 1976 to win Wisconsin without taking Racine County.
Polls, including one from Marquette University Law School last month, show the race even in Wisconsin, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than one percentage point. Biden won in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes.
Republicans point to both state and national polls that show their voters are more enthusiastic than Democrats. During the presidential primaries in Wisconsin a month ago, 18,000 more Republicans voted than Democrats.
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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Wisconsin and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.