Biden’s bold ad blitz

Good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown. I'm Steff Chávez, the FT's Washington reporter. Today we’re chatting about:

• Biden’s new ad blitz
• The battle for Wisconsin
• Protecting prices at the pump

Joe Biden’s campaign is growing bolder with its attacks on Donald Trump — and is paying a pretty penny for it.

The president is taking aim at his predecessor’s character with a $50mn advertising blitz that portrays Trump as an “unhinged” felon set on retribution [free to read].

The advert hit the airwaves just over a week before the first presidential debate, which will take place in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia — one of the most critical swing states up for grabs.

The TV spots, which paint Trump as a “spiralling and unhinged man who will do anything for power, revenge and retribution”, according to the Biden campaign, will target voters in battleground states. The $50mn also includes what the campaign said was its largest investment yet to reach Black, Latino, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander voters.

The new attack ad comes after the president raised $28mn at a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles that featured former president Barack Obama and actors Julia Roberts and George Clooney.

The Hollywood event haul was the biggest in the history of the Democratic party, surpassing the bumper $26mn raised from a March fundraiser in New York.

The entertainment enclave is still a hotbed of Democratic support in contrast to the political shift rightward in Silicon Valley, where Trump raised $12mn from venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Trump has been hitting up megadonors from Wall Street to the oilfields of Texas as he tries to close the cash gap with Biden.

The former president leads Biden by 1.1 points nationally, according to a polling average from Fivethirtyeight.com, with an edge in the swing states.

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• Biden is set to announce a path to citizenship for half a million undocumented spouses of US citizens.
• The president came into office threatening to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state, but the kingdom has won him over; Washington and Riyadh are closer than ever. [Free to read]
• There’s a battle over who polices online misinformation this election year, as libertarians allege collusion between academia, Big Tech and the government.
• The cryptocurrency industry has had a political awakening — and it has a huge pile of cash it could deploy before November. (NYT)
• Trump is expected to announce his vice-president next month — here are the pros and cons of the eight people on his shortlist. (Politico)

Behind the scenes

Trump will campaign in Wisconsin today, as he and Biden vie for the Midwest swing state’s coveted voters.

Wisconsin has a significant population of older, white and blue-collar workers whose party allegiances tend to waver. Trump will be trying to bolster his support in rural areas and peel away from Biden’s lower-income and minority voters in cities.

Who wins the state will depend on whether Biden can both keep his vote tally in Democratic strongholds such as Milwaukee and Madison and gain backers in the cities’ traditionally conservative college-educated Republican suburbs.

The FT’s James Politi recently took a trip to Sauk County, a political bellwether, and one of two counties in the state that flip-flopped between parties in recent years. . . . Register for the FT to keep reading the newsletter for free.