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'This Is So Dark': Conservatives Blast Biden Campaign's Divisive First Ad of 2024

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  January 04, 2024 1:00 PM

The Biden-Harris campaign announced on Thursday its first ad of 2024 will run on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and highlight “the existential threat our country’s democracy faces from the MAGA extremism that now defines the Republican Party…”

“I’ve made the preservation of American democracy an essential issue of my presidency,” Biden says in the 60-second ad, titled “Cause.” 

“There's something dangerous is happening in America. There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy,” he continues. 

The half-a-million-dollar ad will run for a week on national and local television news programs in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. A shorter version of the ad will run on digital platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, and Connected TV, the campaign said in a press release.

Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions surrounding the riot will be a central focus of Biden’s reelection campaign, and he plans to emphasize the threats from “MAGA extremism” in a speech Friday in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania—an event that had initially been planned for Jan. 6 but was moved up a day due to an impending storm.

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“Led by Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans are running on an extreme platform of undermining the will of the American people who vote in free and fair elections, weaponizing the government against their political opponents, and parroting the rhetoric of dictators in service of forcing their extreme, unpopular agenda,” said Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez in a statement. “Over the last three years, MAGA Republicans haven’t shied away from the Big Lie – they’ve doubled down. This ad serves as a very real reminder that this election could very well determine the very fate of American democracy.” 

Conservatives blasted the ad's divisiveness from a man who pledged to be a great unifier upon taking office.