2020 election: Biden launches Ohio ad campaigns as Buckeye State suddenly in play

Donald Trump warns Democrats want to shut down fracking

In another sign of an electoral map that has shifted rapidly in recent months, the Biden campaign is about to launch an ad campaign in Ohio.

The Buckeye State, which Donald Trump won by 8 points in 2016, had been considered until the last few months as solidly in Republican hands by political strategists of both parties.

Several polls give former vice president Joe Biden a narrow lead there, and the campaign’s decision to spend money in the state indicates Mr Biden and his top aides see it as winnable.

The one-minute video focuses on Mr Biden’s modest upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania, another Rustbelt battleground state. It explicitly notes the former VP’s “commitment to working families.”

“Scranton is a long way from Wall Street. You won’t find skyscrapers or big-city bankers,” the ad states. “Just hard-working people that make this country work. That’s where Joe Biden’s story starts, in working class neighbourhoods where you can make a good living and pass on a better life to your kids.

“That’s why Joe Biden went into public service to begin with, to make a difference for working families,” a narrator says in the ad. “Donald Trump? He ran for president for himself and for his friends on Wall Street.”

The ad reportedly will air in the Toledo and Youngstown markets through the Democratic National Convention, slated for next month.

By purchasing ad time in Ohio, the Biden campaign is expanding its spending beyond five other battleground states: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Mr Trump criticised Mr Biden and Democrats over their opposition of fracking, which he predicted will hurt the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in Ohio and other states come Election Day.

“Their platform calls for mandating zero-carbon emissions from power plants by 2035. In other words, no drilling, no fracking, no coal, no shale, no gas, no oil,” he said of Democrats during a visit to a Texas oil rig that quickly became a mini-campaign rally.

“Otherwise, they’ve been very good to the industry, I think.

“You got to be careful. You know, people don’t take it seriously. If they got in, you will have no more energy coming out of the great state of Texas, out of New Mexico, out of anywhere – Oklahoma, North Dakota. Name them. Pennsylvania,” he said.

“You don’t realise how big it is. They want to have no fracking, no nothing.”

“Pennsylvania does a lot. People don’t realise that. A lot. It would throw Pennsylvania, Ohio – so many other places,” Mr Trump said.