Biden and Trump are keeping relatively light campaign schedules as their rivals rack up the stops

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, front-runners for their parties' nomination, are barely campaigning in crucial early voting states as the primary season enters the fall rush.

Their rivals are busy answering voters' questions at town halls across South Carolina, glad-handing with business owners in New Hampshire and grinding to hit every one of Iowa's 99 counties.

The schedules underscore the reality that Biden and Trump are the dominant front-runners. Biden faces only token opposition in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is viewed more favorably by Republicans than Democrats, while Trump is currently beating his closest rival by large margins, according to recent polls.

"When you have a massive lead over your primary opponents, it doesn't seem like a lot of point," said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres, speaking about the early state campaigning typical at this stage of a race.

Biden and Trump have worked to project an air of inevitability four months before voting begins in 2024. Biden has focused on governing and traveling the country to promote his policy accomplishments. Trump repeatedly skips events with other candidates and passed on the first Republican primary debate last month.

But both have different reasons for their relative absence from campaigning.

Trump's team has been consumed by the criminal charges he now faces in four separate jurisdictions accusing him of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, improperly classifying hush money payments in business records, mishandling classified documents after leaving office and trying to obstruct that investigation.

Trump has complained that the looming trials will force him from campaigning.

"I'm sorry, I won't be able to go to Iowa today, I won't be able to go to New Hampshire today because I'm sitting in a courtroom on (expletive)," he said during his last visit to New Hampshire, in August.

For now, Trump's bookings and arraignments have actually served as his highest-profile campaign events.

His trips to jails and courthouses in New York, Miami, Washington and Atlanta have dominated coverage of the race, with his movements tracked by news helicopters and broadcast live on television and across the internet. His historic mug shot, now featured on T-shirts, mugs and posters, helped his campaign raise more than $20 million in August alone.

Aides say he has been focusing on relationship building, calling party officials and recording videos for state and county party events. Such efforts, they say, have helped him earn him earn endorsements from senators, members of Congress and statewide officials.

"We do a lot of fundraising out of state, at Bedminster, calls. There's a lot that goes into running a campaign that's not in front of the camera," said Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita.

They have also acknowledged the large-scale rallies that were the signature of his past campaigns — and which he was doing weekly at this point in 2015 — are expensive, especially as the former president's political operation has been diverting tens of millions of dollars to spend on legal fees defending him and his allies. In places of the rallies, Trump has given speeches at events organized — and paid for — by state parties, and made unadvertised stops at local restaurants, where he interacts with supporters.

In early voting New Hampshire, Mike Dennehy, a veteran Republican strategist, said he thinks Trump "is doing the bare minimum necessary for him to maintain his lead." At the same time, Trump's broader campaign "is working very hard, harder than they have worked in the history of Donald Trump campaigns," Dennehy said.

"The contenders in the Republican primary are not giving Donald Trump much of a contest. So he has the luxury of just doing enough to maintain his lead," he said.

Biden in battleground states

Biden has campaigned even less.

The president championed a Democratic National Committee effort to make South Carolina the party's leadoff state in its 2024 presidential primary, breaking with Republicans who are still starting in Iowa. But Biden has not visited South Carolina as a 2024 candidate.

Biden's reelection campaign says his approach mirrors that of past incumbents, including Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Biden is frequently promoting his policy achievements but keeping campaign costs low, while working with national and state Democrats to bolster staff and data operations so that they will be in place when the race heats up next year.

The president has attended fundraisers around the country for his reelection campaign and visited battleground states such as Arizona on official business. Sometimes, he has gone to Republican bastions, including Utah, Texas and Alabama.

Once there, he often blurs the line between politics and the presidency, celebrating things such as the bipartisan infrastructure law approved by Congress last year, while chiding Republicans for opposing a green energy and health care package that he argues is creating jobs and lower costs for Americans.

"You get great credit for doing your job and people tend to listen to you more when you're not talking about your own reelection but you're just talking about enacting something that's good for the country," said Ed Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. "That's a real advantage. The incumbent can just go on being the incumbent."

Contributing: Jonathan Mattise

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