Hopeful Yet Cautious, Biden’s Team Aims to Exploit Trump’s Conviction

Twelve jurors in New York just handed President Biden a remarkable opportunity by convicting his predecessor. How politically useful it proves to be for Mr. Biden will help decide the 2024 election.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s guilty verdict on all 34 counts in his hush-money trial on Thursday set off a wild outburst of Democratic celebrations and an outpouring of Republican fury, and it gave Mr. Biden’s campaign a fresh way to frame the race: a stark choice between someone who is a convicted felon and someone who is not.

For more than a year, Mr. Biden has sought to cast the 2024 election not as a referendum on his four years in office but on whether voters want to return Mr. Trump to office after a first term in which he undermined abortion rights, democracy and the rule of law.

It has not been working so far. Mr. Trump has led many polls, with voters holding dim views of Mr. Biden’s stewardship of the economy, the southern border and foreign wars. But Mr. Trump’s conviction could well shake up U.S. politics, serving as a convening moment that cuts through a fragmented news media ecosystem even if it does not change pessimism about inflation and the cost of living.

The Manhattan jury’s verdict is likely to focus attention on Mr. Trump in a way that Mr. Biden’s supporters have long hoped it would. Even if Mr. Biden does not directly affix the title “felon” to his rival, scores of his allies are planning to do so in their communications about Mr. Trump through the end of the campaign.

“Donald Trump is a racist, a homophobe, a grifter and a threat to this country,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a top Biden surrogate and an influential billionaire donor for Democratic causes. “He can now add one more title to his