Denial and uncertainty are looming over a Biden-Trump rematch 6 months out from Election Day

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — This North Carolina voter is nervous.

Will Rikard, a 49-year-old father of two, was among several hundred Democrats who stood and cheered for Joe Biden as the first-term president delivered a fiery speech recently about the billions of dollars he has delivered to protect the state’s drinking water.

But afterward, the Wilmington resident acknowledged he is worried about Biden’s political standing in the looming rematch with former Republican President Donald Trump.

“There’s not enough energy,” Rikard said of Biden’s coalition. “I think people are gonna need to wake up and get going.”

Exactly six months before Election Day, Biden and Trump are locked in the first contest in 112 years with a current and former president competing for the White House. It’s a race that is at once deeply entrenched and highly in flux as many voters are only just beginning to embrace the reality of the 2024 campaign.

Wars, trials, the independent candidacy of Robert Kennedy Jr. and deep divisions across America have injected extraordinary uncertainty into a race for the White House in which either man would be the oldest president ever sworn in on Inauguration Day. At the same time, policy fights over abortion, immigration and the economy are raging on Capitol Hill and in statehouses.

VOTERS IN DENIAL

Hovering over it all is the disbelief of many voters, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Biden and Trump — their respective parties’ presumptive nominees — will ultimately appear on the general election ballot this fall.

“I think we have an electorate that’s going through the stages of grief about this election,” said Sarah Longwell, who conducts regular focus groups with voters across the political spectrum as