By SEUNG MIN KIM and ZEKE MILLER (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is zeroing in on an expected rematch against Donald Trump after this week’s New Hampshire primaries, eager to sharpen the contrast with his predecessor.
Ten months from Election Day, Biden’s write-in victory in a New Hampshire race he didn’t formally contest put a fork in any plausible path to deny him a second turn at the Democratic nomination. Now Biden and his team want to clarify the choice voters will face, believing that the stakes of the election, and Trump’s solidifying grip on the GOP, will appeal to voters in the center and reinvigorate his base.
While many in the country have hoped for different choices in November, Biden decidedly is not one of them. He sees a rematch with Trump as both his easiest path to reelection and a validation of his decision, at 81, to seek another four-year term.
Biden wasted no time trying to anoint Trump as his head-on rival after the Republican’s decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, which came on the heels of a romp in the Iowa caucuses a week earlier.
Presidential historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton University said the Biden campaign believes it can paint Trump as a very real threat because of the Republican’s past record in the Oval Office.
“He’s not an incumbent, but he was president,” said Zelizer. “You have a traditional incumbent saying Opponent X is dangerous for the country, it’s all theoretical. Here, you’re talking about someone who’s been in the White House.”
Biden faces no shortage of headwinds going into the general election season — low approval ratings, widespread concern about his age, multiplying tensions abroad and plenty of discontent at home, including from disenchanted young people and minorities who were key to his first victory. But his campaign has crafted a rejoinder to each count — the answers often circling back to Trump himself.
Indeed,…
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