2020 Presidential Campaign Commercials
The Plague, The Protests, and The Soul of the Nation
he two television sets above frame a window into one of the most surreal and consequential moments in the American experiment. To watch the 2020 presidential campaign commercials is to view a nation in the grip of a fever dream. Unlike previous election cycles defined by policy debates or economic philosophies, the contest between President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was fought against the backdrop of a biological catastrophe and a summer of fiery social unrest.
The commercials of 2020 serve as a grim time capsule. They document a year when the handshake died, when the campaign rally became a public health controversy, and when the 30-second television spot became one of the few remaining threads connecting the candidates to a sequestered electorate. This was not just an election; it was a referendum on reality itself.
The Landscape: Campaigning from the Bunker
To understand the advertising of 2020, one must first acknowledge the silence. For much of the year, the traditional noise of the campaign trail—the roar of the jet engines, the brass bands, the diner visits—was silenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this vacuum, the television commercial became the primary vehicle for political combat.
The visual language of political advertising shifted overnight. The 2020 presidential campaign commercials are filled with imagery that would have been alien just four years prior: doctors in hazmat suits, empty Times Square streets, candidates speaking through masks, and voters connecting via grainy Zoom calls.
The strategies of the two camps diverged sharply in response to the crisis. The Biden-Harris campaign embraced the constraints, turning the “basement campaign” into a symbol of responsible leadership. The Trump-Pence campaign fought against the constraints, using their ads to project a sense of normalcy and defiance in the face of a virus that was rewriting daily life.
The Trump Strategy: Law, Order, and the Trojan Horse
President Trump’s media strategy was a furious attempt to shift the narrative away from the pandemic and toward a culture war. Faced with an economy battered by lockdowns, the “Keep America Great” message of early 2020 was forced to pivot to a darker, more urgent theme: “Law and Order.”
Following the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide protests, the Trump campaign unleashed a barrage of commercials depicting chaos. Ads like “Break In” featured dystopic images of empty police stations and intruders breaking into suburban homes, with a narrator asking, “When you call 911, who will answer if Joe Biden is president?”
The central thesis of the Trump advertising was the “Trojan Horse” narrative. The commercials argued that while Joe Biden might appear to be a moderate, he was merely an empty vessel controlled by the “radical left.” You will see ads linking Biden to figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggesting that a vote for Biden was a vote for socialism and the defunding of the police. These spots were visceral, loud, and designed to energize a base that felt their way of life was under siege.
The Biden Strategy: Empathy as a Weapon
If Trump’s ads were about the fear of what was coming, Biden’s ads were about the grief of what was happening. The Biden-Harris media campaign was a disciplined exercise in empathy. From the launch of his campaign, Biden framed the election not as a political contest, but as a “Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”
The commercials you will watch on the Biden page often feel quieter. They utilized the candidate’s personal history of loss to connect with a nation that was losing thousands of citizens a day to the virus. Ads focused heavily on character, contrasting Biden’s perceived decency with Trump’s volatility.
Crucially, the Biden campaign weaponized the pandemic response. Ads showed Biden wearing a mask—a visual often mocked by his opponent—as an act of patriotic duty. They highlighted the empty chairs at dining room tables and the economic anxiety of the working class. The slogan “Build Back Better” was introduced not just as an infrastructure plan, but as a promise of spiritual and economic restoration after a period of national trauma.
The Digital Battlefield: The Death Star vs. The Hive
While television remained the prestige medium, the 2020 cycle saw the complete maturation of digital warfare. The Trump campaign’s digital operation, often referred to as the “Death Star,” spent heavily on YouTube mastheads and Facebook ads that were often more aggressive than their TV counterparts. These digital spots were micro-targeted to elicit specific emotional responses—anger, fear, or pride—from key demographics in swing states.
The Biden campaign countered with a massive investment in digital fundraising and influencer engagement. For the first time, we saw significant ad spend dedicated not just to persuading voters, but to explaining how to vote. With the massive shift to mail-in ballots, many commercials were essentially instructional videos on democracy, teaching voters how to fill out ballots and where to drop them off.
The Scranton vs. Park Avenue Frame
Despite the unprecedented circumstances, the Biden campaign successfully resurrected a classic populist frame: Scranton vs. Park Avenue.
Biden’s commercials relentlessly hammered his working-class roots it Pennsylvania, positioning him as the champion of the “guys he grew up with.” This was a direct strategic move to reclaim the Rust Belt voters who had defected to Trump in 2016. By casting Trump not as a populist hero but as a self-interested billionaire who “botched” the pandemic response to protect his stock portfolio, the Biden ads sought to sever the bond between the President and the white working class.
The Legacy of 2020
As you navigate to the specific candidate pages below, observe the stark difference in reality presented by the two sides. In the Trump commercials, America is a fortress under assault by anarchists and socialists, requiring a strongman to defend it. In the Biden commercials, America is a grieving family in need of a healer to bind its wounds.
The 2020 presidential campaign commercials are difficult to watch. They lack the optimism of 2008 or the glossy corporate sheen of 2012. They are raw, urgent, and deeply polarizing. They document a moment when the country was physically separated but digitally connected, screaming at each other through the screens.
Ultimately, these advertisements tell the story of an election that was a referendum on the nature of leadership in a crisis. One side offered defiance; the other offered consolation. In the end, the ads that promised a return to “normalcy” won the day, but the commercials themselves serve as a permanent record that in 2020, “normal” was nowhere to be found.
You can also view the commercials on the Political Jar YouTube Channel
Learn more about the United States Presidents at the Political Jar Presidents Page