The Urgent Need to Blow Off Swing Voters

In a presidential election where both leading candidates are unpopular, there’s much talk about what each candidate can say to swing voters in Thursday’s debate. But true swing voters are disengaged from political news; in fact, many avoid it with a determination normally reserved for toxic exes, ticks and food poisoning. To the extent they learn what’s said on Thursday, it’ll be via repackaged clips on social media.

The voters who will be glued to their screens will be registered Democrats and Republicans — along with self-identified independents, 81 percent of whom, according to Pew Research Center, have consistent partisan leanings — and to put it mildly, none of them are enthusiastic about their choices. Loathing for both parties is at an all-time high, and 25 percent of voters are what pollsters call “double haters.”

So President Biden and former President Donald Trump can’t just focus on making people hate the other guy more, though each does need to be aggressive about defining his opponent’s weaknesses. What they must do more than anything else is address concerns their own supporters have and give people who want to be on their side a reason to get excited.

That’s where the similarity ends. Mr. Biden’s challenge is to reassure skeptical Democrats that he is still vigorous and that he is responsive to voters’ worries about inflation and other problems on their minds. Mr. Trump needs to convince Nikki Haley Republicans and others concerned about his ethics that their differences are less significant than his promise of financial security, tight borders and abortion restrictions.

Both candidates are, to put it bluntly, old, but age is costing Mr. Biden more in terms of perception. Mr. Trump‘s bombast is often construed as youthful energy, a fact he has used to great effect, referring to Mr. Biden as “sleepy Joe” — even though only one of them nodded off during his own criminal trial. But voters aren’t judging the candidates on the same issues. They’re judging each man on his own most prominent negative trait. For Mr. Biden, it’s his age. For Mr. Trump, it’s his criminal convictions, or the perception that he is an extremist, motivated by revenge.

Since Mr. Biden can’t lop off a decade, he must acknowledge the concern, and tie it to the decades of relevant policy experience Mr. Trump lacks. Give voters another way to see it.