Analysts say that while the 80-year-old Biden can point to legislative accomplishments such as the $1 trillion infrastructure measure to fix roads and bridges and his administration's success in funding the nation's COVID response, he's vulnerable on issues such as high inflation and rising crime, as well as doubts about his age.
"If they focus too much on Trump, which is pretty an easy way of doing things, I think it makes them more vulnerable," said Brown University political science professor Wendy Schiller. "You have to explain what Biden has already done for the American voter and what keeping him in office will continue to provide the American voter."
Seventy-six-year-old Trump, too, has vulnerabilities heading into 2024, including an indictment in New York related to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2020 election and the potential for more indictments in the coming months.
Biden's supporters will no doubt remind voters of Trump's legal woes, but Jones thinks the impact on the trail may be less than Democrats hope. "While Trump's legal issues are likely to be a cloud that hangs over the campaign between now and 2024," Jones said, "they're unlikely to change the dynamics of the race because in the Republican primary side, most Republicans don't give much credence to the charges or they don't care about them. And then in the general election, there aren't many people out there who haven't already made their mind up about Donald Trump, either for him or against him."
