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A Democratic super PAC releases an ad hitting Trump on the pandemic to kick off a $57 million October.

A new ad from the Democratic super PAC Future Forward features a doctor lamenting that the United States still does not have the coronavirus under control.Credit...Future Forward

Future Forward, a relatively new Democratic super PAC, made waves this summer when it booked $20 million in television advertisements for the final five weeks of the election cycle. That number has since increased to $57 million, and the group aired its first ads of the fall sprint on Tuesday, including one that focused on the coronavirus pandemic.

As the Democratic Party has continued to hammer the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus, which has caused more than 200,000 deaths in the United States, this ad turns to a medical professional to offer an emotional description of their failure. It opens with a doctor speaking directly to the camera, his voice slightly on edge, as he recalls a young mother with the coronavirus asking, “Am I going to be OK?” The doctor says, “I could not give her the answer that I wanted to give her.”

Still speaking to the camera, the doctor says that there is no reason that the United States still does not have the coronavirus under control, an implicit indictment of President Trump.

The ad then shows Joseph R. Biden Jr. talking to scientists and wearing a mask, as the doctor makes the case for the former vice president’s ability to pull the country out of the pandemic, saying Mr. Biden “is not going to let his ego get in the way of fighting the disease.”

The doctor says, “There is no excuse for why we don’t have this under control at this point,” and it is true that the United States continues to post higher death and case rates than most major developed countries, as it has for much of the pandemic. But the virus has shown surges in other countries, most notably in Europe, and officials are struggling to contain the second wave of cases.

On broadcast television in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

It seems like every week, a new development threatens to upend the election. But Democratic groups and candidates have shown a persistence on two subjects — health care and the pandemic — and this new ad from Future Forward is further evidence that those topics are likely to be dominant messages for the rest of the campaign.

Nick Corasaniti covers national politics. He was one of the lead reporters covering Donald Trump's campaign for president in 2016 and has been writing about presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns for The Times since 2011. More about Nick Corasaniti

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: To Help Treat Pandemic, a Doctor Suggests Removing Trump’s Ego. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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