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Biden ads court young Black men in final campaign stretch

13 October 2020
Dan Ackermann

The Biden campaign is releasing five ads on Tuesday targeting millennial Black men in 16 battleground states.

Why it matters: Black voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrat Joe Biden, but President Trump actually is earning more support nationally from Black men than he received in 2016 — 17%, up from 14%. Biden is pushing to halt the trend and maximize his own turnout, which could make a difference in tight contests.

  • The Biden campaign is targeting low-propensity voters with this multimillion dollar TV, digital and radio blitz.
  • Black men are more likely to back Republicans than Black women, per FiveThirtyEight.
  • Black voter turnout decreased in the 2016 presidential election from the highs of former President Obama's 2008 and 2012 elections. Voter turnout increased among millennials overall in 2016, but it decreased for Black millennials, per Pew Research.

Driving the news: The new ads will air nationwide with an emphasis in these battlegrounds: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

  • The ads feature brief, informal conversations between Black men about President Trump, the election and why it's important to vote.
  • "These new GOTV ads reach a critical audience of Black voters that we're hoping to turn out this election," said Kamau Marshall, Director of Strategic Communications.

"Everybody says your vote is your voice, so I feel like if you don't vote, you are comfortable being silenced," says one man in the Biden ad campaign.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.