President Biden’s campaign will release a new ad Monday that takes direct aim at former President Donald J. Trump’s abortion policies, claiming he is largely responsible for ending Roe v. Wade, according to a campaign official.
The ad, which will air on digital television in key states, is part of a $50 million ad campaign launched in July.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to appoint several anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, with the goal of overturning Roe. When the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022, which ended the constitutional right to abortion, Mr. Trump took credit for it.
The ad, titled “Her Own” and obtained by The New York Times, quotes Mr. Trump during last month’s presidential debate with Mr. Biden as saying that “it’s a great thing” that the justices he nominated helped overturn Roe.
“Ask yourself: Who do you want in the White House: the man who proudly overturned Roe v. Wade, or the president who fights for your rights?” the ad’s narrator asks.
Social conservatives have long called for tighter nationwide restrictions on abortion, but such measures have been a losing issue for Republicans in federal, state and local elections since 2022. Mr. Trump has also tried to be more cautious on abortion. He said during the debate that rather than a national ban, he hoped states would decide on abortion rights individually.
The ad aims to address one of Mr. Biden’s weak points during the debate, when he gave a muddled answer on the question, and he has since used campaign speeches to double down on his promise to reinstate Roe v. Wade if reelected, one of the most enduring political promises of his campaign.
Mr. Biden’s campaign, which has come under intense scrutiny after his debate performance, has sought to keep the spotlight on Mr. Trump. It has published social media posts, a website and ads about Mr. Trump and Project 2025, a Republican policy playbook developed by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and like-minded groups. The playbook proposes a radical overhaul of the federal government, including a rejection of the idea of abortion as a health-care system.
The Biden team is focused on how a second Trump term would dramatically reduce freedoms. The 2025 plan is not part of Mr. Trump’s campaign platform, and he claimed no knowledge of it last week. But the plan was written or supported by a host of close Trump allies and former Trump administration officials, some of whom work for the former president.
“If re-elected, Trump will go even further: punishing women who have abortions, banning abortion nationwide, and implementing the rest of the extreme 2025 Project agenda,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement, adding that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris stood between women and “Trump’s vicious attacks on reproductive health care.”
