The Election is Set

It’s Biden vs. Trump. It’ll be a few weeks before they have enough delegates to clinch their nominations, but after yesterday’s Super Tuesday results — in which those candidates won at least 14 states each — the primaries are effectively over. The general election is about to begin.

On paper, Biden ought to be the favorite. He’s an incumbent president with a strong economy and an opponent facing trial for multiple alleged crimes.

Yet according to the polls, Trump begins the general election campaign in the lead. Over the last four months, he has led nearly every poll in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, along with the states he carried in 2020 — enough to give him 283 electoral votes and the presidency.

This is not what many expected from a Biden-Trump rematch, especially after Democrats were resilient in the midterms and excelled in special elections by campaigning on issues like democracy and abortion.

Biden’s unpopularity

But Biden’s job approval rating is stuck in the upper 30s, and voters simply don’t look upon him favorably the way they once did. Nearly three-quarters of voters, including a majority of Democrats, say he is too old to be an effective president.

In the end, Biden might well prevail by capitalizing on issues like abortion and democracy. Historically, early polls are not especially predictive of a final outcome. Many voters aren’t yet paying close attention, and there will be every opportunity for the Biden campaign to refocus the electorate on more favorable issues once the general election campaign gets underway. The events of the next eight months may well, too; from the effects of a gradually improving economy to the circumstances on the border and in conflicts abroad.

But even though the early polls aren’t necessarily predictive, they’re still worth taking seriously. Voters know these candidates very well. Biden is the president, Trump is a former president, and both candidates have been in public life for decades. And based on all that voters have seen, they are saying they do not like Biden and don’t think he’s a very effective president. This is not a small matter.

Democrats have won a lot of elections lately, but not like this. Ever since Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, Democrats have followed a simple playbook: nominate acceptable, mainstream candidates and count on voters to reject right-wing Republicans. Biden himself was such a candidate back in 2020, and even then he defeated Trump by only a slim margin — less than a percentage point in the pivotal battleground states. His basic strategy has stayed the same, but his favorability rating is 14 points lower.

The polls suggest that Biden’s weakness is concentrated among the less engaged, less educated segment of the electorate, including many young, Black and Hispanic voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates. Democrats have fared well in recent midterm and special elections, but Biden’s dissenters represent a small share of the electorate in these low-turnout races. Many more will vote this November.

Could Biden recover?

There might be a kernel of good news for Biden hidden in his extreme weakness among less engaged voters: His campaign can hope they are simply not paying close attention, and might return to Biden’s side once voters tune into the race. My colleague Claire Cain Miller, for instance, interviewed a voter who said abortion was the most important issue, but blamed Biden for the loss of abortion rights in America. That’s exactly the kind of voter a campaign can hope to sway.

Biden can also hope that Trump will loom larger in the minds of voters as the election nears. Trump’s strength in the polls is not because voters like him; he’s viewed about as unfavorably as he was four years ago. In fact, his ratings numbers are almost exactly where they stood before the last election. Many voters may look back fondly on the state of the economy during his term, judging it positively against post-pandemic inflation and Biden. On the other hand, a majority of voters say they believe Trump has committed serious federal crimes.

Trump’s persistent unpopularity sets up an agonizing choice for millions of voters who liked and backed Biden in the last election but now find themselves left to choose between two candidates they dislike; a group sometimes known as “double haters.” It also sets up a challenging election for pollsters, as these voters probably have more volatile preferences. Many of them may not come to a firm decision until they absolutely have to — at the ballot box.

No one can say what these voters will do come November. Many might ultimately choose not to make a decision at all, whether by staying home or voting for a minor-party candidate. What we know is that today’s double haters were essential to Biden’s victory in 2020, but they are not fans of him today and enough of them now tell pollsters they support Trump to give him the lead. That’s worth taking very seriously.

More on the presidential primaries

• Thousands of Chinese migrants are arriving in New York City via Mexico.

• Scholars rejected a proposal to declare the start of the “Anthropocene” — a new chapter in Earth’s history defined by humanity’s impact on the planet.

• A Philadelphia man wrongly convicted of murder was freed after more than 30 years in prison. See photos of his release.

• The Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska got off to a messy start: a five-time champion killed a moose to protect himself and his dogs.

Opinions

Lorgia García Peña resented her father for rarely saying “I love you.” Now she understands the love behind his silence.

Holocaust Museum: A new institution in Amsterdam is the first to tell the full story of the persecution of Dutch Jews during World War II.

Ask Well: Hydrogen water is said to reduce inflammation and boost mood. Does it live up to the hype?

Lives Lived: Antoine Predock was an Albuquerque-based architect who became internationally acclaimed for buildings that resonated with the landscape of the American Southwest. He died at 87.

SPORTS

Viewership: Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking game received the biggest regular-season TV audience in women’s college basketball for 25 years.

Men’s college basketball: Dartmouth players voted to form a union, a landmark in the movement to recognize college athletes as employees.

N.B.A.: The bench player Dean Wade spurred the Cleveland Cavaliers to an unexpected come-from-behind win over the Boston Celtics.

American maestros: In 1958, Leonard Bernstein was named music director of the New York Philharmonic. His appointment blazed a trail for American conductors and showed that they could compete with their European counterparts.

Seven decades later, few American conductors are at the helm of the nation’s largest and most prestigious orchestras. Pursuing a career in Europe is, for some, more fruitful than staying at home.

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