Biden heads to Wisconsin to tout new Microsoft facilities, meet with voters – and troll Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden launches into a new battleground state Wednesday, continuing to contrast with Donald Trump on economic policy as his own re-election campaign prepares a new $14 million ad blitz aimed at part blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans. voters.

Biden is traveling to Racine, Wisconsin, where he will highlight Microsoft’s decision to build a $3.3 billion data center that is expected to create about 2,000 jobs. It is also the same place where Trump, with great fanfare, welcomed a plan in Plan of Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn to build a $10 billion manufacturing plant expected to eventually employ 10,000 people. Except it was never completed.

Aware of this story, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft said in an interview with The Associated Press that Microsoft had a “firm commitment to underpromise and overdeliver” and praised the Biden administration and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for economic policies that set the stage for developments announced Wednesday.

Trump’s campaign has not addressed Foxconn, but the former president often says the economy was in a much better position when he was in office, and will be again if he wins.

Meanwhile, Biden’s re-election team is ramping up its outreach to minority voters on the airwaves, with the launch Wednesday of a new seven-figure digital and TV ad campaign that follows the $30 million effort which began after his election. State of the Union address in early March. One of the ads part of the new campaign will also be released Wednesday and will focus on Trump’s unsuccessful but determined attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

After his speech, Biden took a break from campaigning to talk with Black voters about the issues in the November election.

The Biden campaign wants to capitalize about the fundraising advantage he has over Trump, hoping to bury them on the airwaves while amassing significant resources on the ground in key battleground states to force Republicans to catch up much later in the year.

“The complete lack of investment from the other side is just as important as our own historic investments,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden campaign, told reporters. “Trump’s paid media strategy can only be described as anemic and ineffective.”

A significant portion of the $14 million campaign that begins Wednesday will be aimed at Black and Hispanic media, as well as Asian American print and radio, according to the campaign. Campaign officials also said Biden will continue to conduct targeted interviews with media outlets that primarily speak to minority audiences, while the campaign plans to launch more coalition groups in May that will focus on specific blocs of voters. So far, the Biden campaign has launched groups to engage women, Latinos and educators.

By the end of May, Biden’s re-election effort will have more than 200 offices and about 500 staffers in place, according to Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground director. Those numbers include offices located in areas that have traditionally not seen investment from Democrats, including pockets of Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.

“We show up every day in the community and try to win every vote,” said Quentin Fulks, senior deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign. “Donald Trump and his team are doing none of this.”

Although Biden’s remarks in Racine were part of an official White House event, Fulks said the stop would “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 result in an influx of 2,300 jobs, mostly in construction, by the end of the year.

As Microsoft accelerates the construction of AI-powered data centers around the world, “this one is more important than many others because there is more land and, ultimately, access to data.” ‘electricity available,’ said Smith, who lived in the area where the center is being built. built like a child.

However, 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 corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago, Smith said.

However, he argued that the biggest impact for the region would be in the technology itself and greater investments to prepare the Upper Midwest for its impacts.

“It’s about the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Smith said.

Racine County is a critical location; all but five of the 33 winning presidential candidates have worn 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 winning Racine County.

Polls, including one from Marquette University Law School last month, show the race is roughly even in Wisconsin, a state where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a point percentage. Biden won by just under 21,000 votes in 2020.

Republicans point out that state and national polls show their voters are more enthusiastic than Democrats. A month ago, in Wisconsin’s presidential primary, 18,000 more Republicans than Democrats voted.

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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Wisconsin and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.