NATIONWIDE — Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is about to unleash a $280 million advertising blitz – which the campaign says is the largest ever by a presidential candidate – in the run-up to Election Day. 

The campaign for the presumptive Democratic nominee announced Wednesday it is spending $220 million on TV commercials and another $60 million digitally on social media and gaming platforms. The ads will run in 15 states and begin Sept. 1.

The commercials – which will run 60 seconds, rather than the more traditional 30 seconds – will largely take aim at President Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic fallout, with Biden speaking directly to the camera.

“This election is a clear referendum on Donald Trump and his failed leadership on COVID and also on the economy,” Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a call Tuesday night.

Mike Donilon, Biden’s chief strategist, said the longer ads will allow the former vice president to deliver a “fuller, clearer message.”

“There’s a great value in being able to positively speak to the central concern of people’s lives,” Donilon said. “The Trump campaign is in a very difficult situation when they are unable to speak to the central issue in this country, and that their entire campaign is really an effort to distract people’s attention.”

The initial ad buy includes 10 states that Trump won in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia. The advertising campaign also targets voters in Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.

Also central to Biden’s push is appealing to Latino, African American and Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters. The campaign said it is spending eight figures on ads directed toward Latinos and plans to “reach approximately half of all African American households" with commercials on networks such as BET, TV1, Bounce and OWN.

The Trump campaign has reserved $147.7 million in television spending across 11 battleground states from September through Election Day. It has not announced how much it is spending on digital advertising.