Biden launches AZ ad highlighting high-tech jobs as part of national blitz

Joe Biden launched his first Arizona-specific ad for his 2024 re-election campaign on Monday focusing on how his economic agenda has brought high-paying and manufacturing jobs to the Grand Canyon State.

Arizona was key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, and his 10,000-vote victory over Donald Trump was the second-closest battleground state Biden won that year. But the limited early public polling on the 2024 campaign shows the president neck-and-neck with Trump in a rematch, and the state is almost certain to be closely contested next year as both parties vie to win the state’s 11 electoral votes.

Biden’s ad highlights the effect the CHIPS Act has had in bringing American manufacturing jobs back from overseas and touts Phoenix-area semiconductor facilities currently under construction. 

The ad features Bill Ruiz, the business representative of the Southwest Mountain States Carpenters Union Local 1912, praising Biden’s work passing the CHIPS Act, which provides roughly $280 billion to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors. Ruiz says that the 2022 law means “we’re seeing American manufacturing returning to the United States in big numbers in big projects.” 

Since 2020, Arizona has led the nation in investments for semiconductor manufacturing, led by chipmaker Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which is investing $40 billion to build two factories in far north Phoenix. The first is expected to be in production in 2024, while the second was announced in December and is slated to come online in 2026. 

Intel, the nation’s largest chip builder, has also said it wants to boost its domestic manufacturing capacity with a $20 billion effort to build two new plants in Arizona.

Those factories “are going to create high-skilled jobs right here,” Ruiz said in the ad, 

“There’s a manufacturing boom happening, and it’s thanks to Joe Biden,” Ruiz added.

The ad will run in the Phoenix market for at least the next week and on national cable news. 

“President Biden’s historic legislative agenda is bringing manufacturing and good jobs to communities across the country, including Phoenix,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager. 

The ad is a part of the Biden campaign’s 16-week, $25 million advertising campaign aimed at voters in battleground states.