WASHINGTON— The unprecedented 2024 election cycle came into focus last week, with President Joe Biden ordering milkshakes and sandwiches on the campaign trail while Donald Trump was admonished by a criminal court judge during jury selection.

Biden worked rope lines in Pennsylvania while Trump observed a lineup of potential jurors being questioned by his legal team and New York state prosecutors. The incumbent visited a steelworkers’ union and two popular Pennsylvania convenience stores. His expected general election foe spent most of the week in a Manhattan courtroom, but squeezed in a campaign stop at a Harlem bodega.

The week’s running drama, as Trump’s first criminal trial got underway, marked a new phase of the 2024 campaign, showing how the presidential election will play out in courtrooms as much as campaign rallies and impromptu stops at local businesses.

With the New York hush money trial marking the first time a former U.S. president was a criminal defendant, lawmakers and strategists described the side-by-side activities of the two likely nominees as striking, but argued predictions about November were difficult because there was no precedent in U.S. history.

Focus voters on opponent

Republican strategist Brian Seitchik said last week highlighted that the election will turn on which candidate can keep the voters focused on his opponent.

“The more it’s all about Trump, the better it is for Biden. The more it’s all about Biden, the better it is for Trump,” he said. “It’s really just that simple. If Trump wins, that means the election was a referendum on Biden. And if Biden wins, that means his campaign made the election a referendum on Trump.”

Some lawmakers were skeptical the surreal spectacle of a sitting president running for reelection against a former one on trial is what is on most voters’ minds.

“I think I can answer that question best in November,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. “With all the litigation fights that have been ongoing for months and months now, we just continue to see Trump’s numbers climb higher and higher. So there’s a point of diminishing returns because his numbers are continuing to climb as more and more Americans get frustrated with what’s happening in the courtroom.”

But when asked about Biden’s recent polling uptick, including in the swing states expected to again decide the next president, Lankford was more muted. “I mean, that’s just going to be the ebb and flow of a campaign,” he said. “It’s hard to get a good read on any day exactly what all the issues are.”

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