Rep. John Delaney (Md.), the first announced 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, got a jump on potential contenders by airing an ad in Iowa during the Super Bowl on Sunday evening.
Delaney, a wealthy health care financier and three-term congressman from Maryland, announced his intention to run for the Democratic nomination in an op-ed published in the Washington Post last July. He will retire from Congress this year to focus on his presidential ambitions, and has struggled to gain traction in a political environment that has yet begun to focus on the 2020 election.
A Delaney advisor told the Des Moines Register that the Super Bowl commercial would be the first in a four-week series of campaign ads in Iowa, the purpose of which is to introduce Delaney to potential 2020 Democratic caucus-goers. The series of ads will cost the candidate around $1 million and will air in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, and Sioux City media markets.
"This is about winning Iowa and John knows that to win Iowa, voters here need to get to know you," John Davis, Delaney's senior adviser said.
Our first TV spot airs today in Iowa during the #SuperBowl. Tune in to hear why our campaign is making waves in the heartland. pic.twitter.com/oYf7aFjHbS
— John K. Delaney (@JohnKDelaney) February 4, 2018
The ad, titled "dirty word," is meant to burnish Delaney's credentials as a bipartisan leader in Iowa, a state that has trended more and more to the right in the past decade. President Donald Trump won Iowa by nine points over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
"We're on the ground, we're on the air and we're talking about new issues in a new way," Davis said. "John stands out because he isn't afraid to embrace bipartisanship. John is focused on our future rather than refighting political battles from the past."
Delaney's strategy to play up his bipartisan image is unexpected since his campaign, at least at this early stage, is aimed directly at the base of the Iowa Democratic Party. The party's base is made up of politically motivated activists who show up to vote in primaries long before the general election is on the majority of voters' radar. In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), a self-styled "democratic socialist" whose campaign was premised around single-payer healthcare and a $15 universal minimum wage, came within one point of winning the Iowa Democratic caucuses over Clinton.