ABSTRACT
The public outreach was to involve the president, vice president, their spouses, members of the cabinet, and other prominent policy experts, as well as groups promoting the new policies. During August, pro-Democrat groups outspent pro-Republican groups on television, radio, and online media advertising, directing their messages to specific proposals in the Build Back Better bill, while the Republicans concentrated their advertising on individual Democratic members of Congress up for re-election in 2022. During Biden’s first six months in office, he did only limited travel with most of it directed at support for his executive and legislative priorities, focusing on the pandemic and the economy. The president’s first trip outside the United States occurred in mid-June 2021 when Biden attended the G7 summit in the United Kingdom, a NATO conference in Belgium, and a one-on-one meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Geneva.
