Biden and Trump set for historic, unpopular rematch

Former President Donald Trump’s commanding performance on Super Tuesday and Nikki Haley’s subsequent exit from the Republican race bring to a close one of the shortest, most anticlimactic primary contests in modern U.S. politics – and kick off a general election campaign that promises to be anything but.

After winning 14 of 15 states yesterday, Mr. Trump stands on the cusp of capturing enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination for the third consecutive time, setting up a November rematch with President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee.

The 2024 general election campaign – featuring two of the oldest, most-disliked candidates ever, and a closely divided but deeply polarized electorate – will make history on a number of levels. For the first time in over a century, an incumbent president will be competing against a former president, both running as lame ducks in a rematch for which few Americans say they are excited.

Mr. Trump never conceded his 2020 loss, maintaining without evidence that the election was fraudulent and standing by as his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The first former U.S. president to be criminally indicted, he is campaigning for the White House while managing costly legal defenses in four separate cases featuring 91 criminal charges.

Mr. Biden, who entered office promising a return to normalcy amid the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw his approval ratings plunge as inflation spiked and huge numbers of migrants began streaming across the southern border.  

With such high levels of disapproval for both candidates, experts suggest November’s election could feature lower turnout than usual, with a higher percentage of votes going to third-party or independent candidates. Ultimately, the presidency may be determined by a relatively small group of voters deciding which major-party candidate they dislike less. This group, often referred to as “double haters” by pollsters, pushed Mr. Biden across the finish line in 2020, but may not do so this time around.

“It shouldn’t be on the voters to have to choose between the lesser of two evils,” says John Ruml, a supply chain manager, as he leaves a Richmond, Virginia, high school after casting his ballot in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Frustrated by Mr. Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict and domestic issues such as health care, Mr. Ruml had planned to vote “uncommitted.” But he didn’t see that option on the ballot, so he voted for self-help author Marianne Williamson instead. Another long shot Democratic challenger, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, dropped out of the race Wednesday after failing to win a single delegate.

Recent polling has put Mr. Trump ahead of Mr. Biden, with a New York Times/Siena College poll from late February showing Mr. Trump leading 48% to 43%. Notably, 40% of registered voters said Mr. Trump’s policies had “helped them personally,” compared with just 18% who said the same thing about Mr. Biden. In other polling, on a range of issues from the economy to immigration to crime, Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden by double digits. Mr. Biden leads by a narrower margin on abortion, health care, and the environment. 

Mr. Biden’s position in the polls also reflects concerns over the president’s age – 47% of respondents in the New York Times poll “strongly agreed” that the 81-year-old is “just too old” to be effective, compared with 21% who said the same of the 78-year-old Mr. Trump. And the president has been facing sharp criticism from voters on the left, particularly younger Democrats, over the Israel-Hamas war. In last week’s Democratic primary in Michigan, which has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States, 13% of voters cast a ballot for “uncommitted.” And in Minnesota on Tuesday, “uncommitted” earned almost 20%.

Biden allies note that the president has actually outperformed the polls in recent primary elections, while Mr. Trump has underperformed them, arguing that the best predictor of voter behavior is how voters actually vote. Indeed, when all is said and done, it’s possible 2024 could wind up looking a lot like 2020, with a key portion of Mr. Biden’s support being driven by strong antipathy to Mr. Trump.  

“If you’re not 100% for Biden, that’s OK – but are you for saving the Constitution?” says Roberto Ventura, an educator, after voting for Mr. Biden in Virginia’s Democratic primary. “There’s really only one way to vote, and that’s for Biden.” 

Mr. Trump faces clear political challenges, even beyond his ongoing criminal cases. While he had a victorious night Tuesday, the fact that he lost up to 40% of the vote to Ms. Haley in states across the country signals potential weakness in the fall. 

Ed Goeas, a Republican strategist who worked on presidential campaigns for both former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, says that 30% to 40% of GOP primary voters “is still a substantial group.”

“Do they stay home? Do they vote for Biden? Or do they vote for Trump? That’s a huge question mark,” he adds.

In announcing her departure from the race on Wednesday, Ms. Haley notably did not endorse Mr. Trump and suggested that her voters could wind up in Mr. Biden’s column if the former president made no effort to win them back.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that,” the former South Carolina governor said. “Our conservative cause badly needs more people.”

Bennett Evans, a law student at Boston College who cast a ballot for Ms. Haley in Massachusetts’ Republican primary, says his vote was in part about supporting “an alternative to Donald Trump.”  

“[Haley]’s strong on the border and has a certain level of respect for the Constitution,” says Mr. Evans as he leaves an elementary school polling place in Brighton Tuesday evening. A registered Republican, he nevertheless voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Mr. Biden in 2020.

“Right now, neither [candidate] is getting the full support of their voters,” says Mr. Goeas, the GOP strategist. For Mr. Biden, the challenge is winning back “Democrats who are not happy about the war.” For Mr. Trump, it’s about persuading “Republicans who are not happy about [his] character” to overlook those concerns.

Outside a Lakewood, Colorado, library just west of Denver, Richie Rosenburgh, an unaffiliated voter who distributes forklift parts, says he cast his first-ever ballot for Mr. Trump on Tuesday, “not because he’s a perfect human being, but because his policies were much better.” The economy seemed to be booming under Mr. Trump, says Mr. Rosenburgh. 

“The economy still seems to be booming,” he clarifies. “It’s just 10 times as much to feed my kids.”

The economy is one of four central issues in which Mr. Biden will probably need to move voter sentiment in his direction in coming months if he wants to win reelection, says Jim Kessler, founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. The others are immigration, crime, and his age. On the last point, Mr. Kessler suggests Mr. Biden address it directly: “You have to run towards it.”

On Thursday, Mr. Biden will have one opportunity to reset, in what could be an unusually high-stakes State of the Union address.

“The general election begins this week,” says Mr. Kessler. “Every poll up to this point is meaningless. Most voters haven’t been paying attention, but they will start to now. The circus has begun.” 

Staff writers Sarah Matusek and Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report from Lakewood, Colorado; and Boston.