Biden visiting battleground states and expanding staff as his campaign tries to seize the offensive

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fresh off his defiant State of the Union address, President Joe Biden and his senior aides will barnstorm the country starting Friday to aggressively sell his vision for a second term to voters — and warn of the Republican alternative.

The president will try to ride the post-speech momentum to Pennsylvania and Georgia for campaign events in two critical battleground states that he flipped in 2020 and is hoping to keeping in his column this November. He’ll move on to Wisconsin and Michigan next week.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making her own trips, first to Arizona to continue her nationwide tour to promote reproductive rights and then to Nevada for her own campaign stop.

Biden’s reelection campaign was almost giddy after the speech, vowing to build on momentum it says the president created to stay on the offensive against Donald Trump.

The president’s campaign announced Friday that he and Harris will visit every major swing state in coming days, while launching a $30 million, six-week advertising campaign on TV and digital platforms designed to highlight key themes from the State of the Union to Black, Asian and Hispanic communities.

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That push will include buys during the NCAA basketball tournament, as Biden’s camp attempts to leverage high ratings, like it says it did when airing an ad promising to defend abortion rights during the recent Grammy awards.

By the end of this month, the campaign expects to expand from 100 staff members in seven battleground states to more than 350, while also opening more than 100 field offices. Trump’s campaign is targeting essentially the same areas, looking to flip Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona after 2020 defeats there, while fending off Biden’s efforts to make inroads in North Carolina and Florida.