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For Biden, Trump's court appearances have provided a prime opportunity to portray his rival as scandal-ridden and unfit for the presidency.
On one side of the screen, Biden is running a traditional campaign for re-election, mixing political rallies around the country with governing duties like brokering this week's passage in Congress of $95 billion in foreign aid.
On the other hand, Trump is in the dock. For most of the past two weeks, he has been in a Manhattan court as a New York defendant in the falsification of documents related to payments made to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels. In every statement he makes before the cameras, Trump looks at what he believes is judicial persecution.
While it's unclear how long the trial in New York will last, much less what the verdict will be, the legal drama is unfolding at a key moment in the race as both candidates move from the primaries to the general election, which is very near.
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Biden has gained some ground compared to early March, when he delivered his State of the Union address to Congress. Trump's lead nationally has shrunk to just 0.3 percentage points, though the former president still has an edge in most state polls.
For Biden, Trump's court appearances have provided a prime opportunity to portray his rival as scandal-ridden and unfit for the presidency. That message was central to Biden's winning 2020 campaign, and he hopes to use it again.
Although Trump's legal troubles helped him in the Republican primaries by galvanizing a right-wing base of voters who rushed to his defense, the trial is becoming a constraint, making it harder to raise campaign money. Politically, the court is hurting his standing with the patchwork of independent and swing voters who will end up deciding the race.
The court appearances are putting " Trump and his liabilities front and center in a way they haven't been in a long time ," says Amy Walter, a nonpartisan political analyst and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report with Amy. Walter.
Kevin Madden, a senior partner at Penta who advised Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, says Trump's legal troubles are "casting a shadow" over his prospects for winning over moderate, traditional Republicans. and college-educated, who supported his rivals in the primaries.
Trump has certainly tried to maintain some of the trappings of a regular campaign even as he moves in and out of the New York courtroom, including frequent, if brief, comments to reporters. Away from the cameras, Trump has appeared a diminished figure, occasionally falling asleep at the defense table and often staring into space.
His behavior has prompted widespread ridicule online, with Democrats seizing on the irony of the man who dubbed his opponent "Sleepy Joe" struggling to stay awake in the middle of the day. Trump has also repeatedly complained about the courtroom temperature, asking the judge — through his attorney Todd Blanche — to turn up the heat a few degrees.
At times, the proceedings have seemed to irritate and even embarrass Trump. He shook his head as prosecutors on Monday referred to the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape and read into the record words uttered by the then-reality TV star that his fame allowed him to grab women "for their p*dhi."
He also seemed annoyed as he listened to former tabloid publisher David Pecker recount in lurid detail the deals he made to prevent Trump's infidelities from becoming public in the run-up to the 2016 election.
During the first week of Trump's trial in New York, Biden spent three days in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, including a visit to Scranton, the industrial city where he was born. This week, he was in Florida trying to tie Trump to tighter abortion restrictions being enacted in Republican states, an issue Democrats are counting on to their advantage in November.
But whether attention to Trump's criminal trial in New York will significantly erode his support is uncertain. A Quinnipiac University poll found that while 60 percent of American voters believe the charges are serious, 62 percent said a conviction would not affect their vote.
Trump allies and campaign officials have dismissed any suggestion that he is losing momentum because of the trial. Caroline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for his campaign, wrote in X that such a view was held only by Biden experts.
While Trump was forced to cancel a rally in North Carolina last weekend due to inclement weather and chose to play golf on Wednesday during his midweek break from the trial, the campaign has now scheduled two events next Wednesday in Michigan and Wisconsin to get him back in front of the state's swing voters.
Meanwhile, he's tried to stay active in New York, making a quick stop in Harlem to visit a bodega, shaking hands with builders at a Midtown Manhattan construction site and hosting foreign politicians from Poland and Japan at the Tower Trump.
But Biden and his team are confident that voters will prevent giving Trump a second term. Even if the New York trial ends earlier than the six weeks expected and none of the federal cases make it to trial before the election, they believe Trump is wasting precious time and resources. At the same time, the Biden campaign is ramping up fundraising, building up their field operations and refining their message in response to their Republican rival. / Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Finnacial Times"
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