As Trump goes front and centre, Biden takes a back seat

Raucous music was played, bellicose speeches were given and big lies were told. Donald Trump held his 20th and 21st campaign rallies of the year in Nevada and Arizona last weekend, urging voters to support Republican candidates in the midterm elections.

-  David Smith

Joe Biden was relaxing at home in Delaware.

The 45th and 46th US presidents have always been like chalk and cheese, and those differences extend to how they approach next month’s crucial vote to determine control of Congress and three dozen state governorships.

Trump is pressing on with the mass rallies in small towns or rural areas that have been a hallmark of his political career since 2015.

Biden is likely to hold rallies of his own as election day approaches but has so far focused on smaller, more intimate fundraising receptions in conference centres, back gardens or ritzy New York apartments.

Underpinning both is the calculation that, although Biden, who turns 80next month, and 76-year-old Trump are the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, there are situations in which they might be seen as more of a liability than an asset. 

"They are both a help and hindrance at different points," said Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington. "Biden is a help raising money; he's a hindrance with the broader public at large. Trump is a help with the base voter to help gin them up and turn them out; he is a hindrance with the same sort of voters who turned against him and who Republicans need."