The non-campaign of 2024, with just half a year left to go

Never mind that on Wednesday last week, the trial’s day off, Trump spent the day golfing at his club in Bedminster, N.J. Hey, a key state such as Pennsylvania is just so far away! (Trump does plan to visit Wisconsin and Michigan this Wednesday.)

Welcome to the non-campaign of 2024, where Trump is spending the majority of his time in a courtroom and President Biden sticks to his usual light schedule of events and closed-door fundraisers. Strangely for a presidential election year, neither the incumbent nor the presumptive challenger, a quasi-incumbent former president, really needs to maintain busy campaign schedule. These two old guys are the ultimate known quantities; Americans already know what they think of them. An “undecided” voter is just someone debating which unappetizing option to settle for.

Trump can coast until the GOP convention in mid-July, and Biden until mid-August. The pace will inevitably pick up after that, but even then, don’t expect the customary frenzy of barnstorming campaign appearances.

In fact, for these two candidates, campaigning might loom as an opportunity for mistakes best avoided. Considering how often Biden comes across as doddering and forgetful, and how often Trump comes across as a raging maniac, the candidate who spends less time in front of cameras and an audience between now and November might have better odds of winning the election. Public appearances just remind voters of what they don’t like about their choices.

Is there anything Biden could say during a stop at an ice-cream shop that would dramatically change your opinion of him? Is there anything Trump could shout at one of his MAGA rallies that could spur you to say, “Oh, I’ve completely misjudged this man”?

We’re stuck with a rerun of a choice between the unpopular guy in the Oval Office and the unpopular guy he replaced. No wonder a recent NBC News poll found the share of voters who say they have high interest in the 2024 election is the lowest in nearly 20 years.

We’re still about six months — half a year — from Election Day, but only a handful of moments between now and then are likely to matter. Trump’s choice of a running mate is one of the few remaining unknowns about the story of this year’s presidential election. Considering the anger at Israel among the Democratic grass roots, the party’s convention in Chicago could turn into an ugly replay of the 1968 convention.

Other than that, what? Presidential debates? It isn’t even clear that there will be any. Yes, last week Biden told Sirius XM radio host Howard Stern that he would be “happy” to debate Trump. (The Biden campaign had previously been vague on this point.) Some Democrats, however, argue that the president shouldn’t dignify Trump by appearing on the same stage.

(In other news, the president, who avoids sit-down interviews with the White House press corps, has found the time to sit down for softball treatment not only from Stern but also, twice, from the actor-comedians on a podcast called “Smartless.”)

Coverage of Trump’s trial in New York has taken a bigger chunk of the news cycle than the presidential campaign in recent weeks, and Biden showed a little improvement in some polls here and there. But the president’s campaign can’t be happy about others. A Bloomberg News-Morning Consult poll conducted April 8 to 15 showed Biden slipping in swing states, and a CNN poll conducted April 18 to 23 showed Trump leading nationally, 49 percent to 43 percent.

CNN noted, “When independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included in the matchup, Trump holds 42% to Biden’s 33%, with Kennedy at 16%, West at 4% and Stein at 3%. Kennedy draws 13% each from supporters of Biden and Trump in the initial two-way matchup.”

Still, Biden might have a significant advantage in the coming months, in that he wants to make the election a referendum on a Donald Trump — and Trump does, too. The presumptive GOP nominee will intermittently remember to bring up the border crisis and the increasing cost of living. But we know what Trump really wants to talk about almost every day: how unfairly he has been treated, how he was the real winner in 2020, how he can get you a great deal on a new Bible … just about everything except what matters most in voters’ lives.

Hey, Republican primary voters wanted it this way. Plenty of people, left, right and center, tried to warn them of the risks — including that Trump’s indictments were likely to keep him off the campaign trail for long stretches. If 2024 ends with Republicans realizing they blew an opportunity against a remarkably vulnerable incumbent, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

Meanwhile, the non-campaign continues, frozen in place with two candidates the public wishes weren’t on the ballot.