How Biden can win in the swing states by learning from New York City’s subways

Warning that Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” is too abstract a message to sway many citizens to vote for President Biden.

Instead, his campaign needs to show voters how the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will benefit them in the years ahead — especially in the swing states.

Biden’s signature legislation allocates substantial funds to Arizona ($7.307 billion), Georgia ($12.388 billion), Michigan ($10.783 billion), North Carolina ($10.395 billion), Pennsylvania ($17.801 billion) and Wisconsin ($7.273 billion). 

Those dollars will impact the daily lives of almost 57 million people: decreasing their energy costs, improving the quality of their drinking water, increasing their access to the internet, reducing the risk of roadway accidents and more. 

By fall 2025, thanks in part to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Atlanta Public School District will have 25 new electric school buses. It’s just one of 389 school districts in the nation that will be able to pass energy savings on to local taxpayers, while improving air quality and (hopefully) reducing asthma.

But fall 2025 is too late for voters to see these developments. Starting now, the Biden campaign needs to show voters the “coming attractions.” To do that, it can take a lesson from New York City.

In its “Here’s what’s coming” campaign, the New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is showing subway riders the future impact of their city and state tax dollars. Giant billboards along the walkway towards the shuttle train from Grand Central Station to Times Square make the coming improvements and benefits tangible: better lighting for safety, elevators to make access easier for all, and more.

Biden is starting to do that with in-person visits, such as his Jan. 25 trip to Wisconsin’s Blatnik Bridge on the shores of a bay near Lake Superior. He told residents that without the infusion of $1 billion from the infrastructure funding the bridge was doomed to fail by 2030. 

But the Biden campaign needs to deliver its “coming attractions” via every available form of visual media in a sustained, overwhelming manner. In print that means billboards on highways and other roads, at train stations, airports and waterways. On social media, that means short video clips showing every possible area of impact.

On television, that means taking a page from the Health Insurance Association of America’s “Harry and Louise” advertising campaign, in which a middle-aged middle-American couple railed against the Clinton administration’s 1994 proposals for health care reform.

In 2024, the Biden campaign should flood the airwaves with characters from a variety of backgrounds talking excitedly as they look at pictures of the coming improvements in their local area made possible by the Biden administration’s success at passing the most significant infrastructure legislation in more than 50 years.

The voters most likely to benefit from these improvements reside in states that Biden must win to stay in office. If Trump wins, you can bet he will claim credit for them, including the electric school buses in Atlanta and the improvements to the MTA.

James Levine, founding partner of lgrliterary.com, holds a doctorate in social policy from Harvard University.