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Get Ready for the Longest Presidential Campaign Ever, Featuring the Oldest Candidates

Trump Vs Biden Photo 199783534 | Biden Vs Trump © Domenico Fornas | Dreamstime.com
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By Annie LinskeyAlex Learyand Suzanne Vranica 

President Biden and Donald Trump are on track to be the oldest pair of presidential nominees in U.S. history. They also are staring at what could become the longest general election campaign ever.

If Trump locks up the Republican nomination soon, the two men will face a marathon one-on-one race to the Nov. 5 general election. Such an endurance test threatens to bring headaches for both candidates and their campaign staffers—and for voters who have said they dread a rematch of the 2020 race.

Biden, 81 years old, and Trump, 77, both like to sleep in their own beds at night. Both, too, are prone to errors and will be under the spotlight many months. Their campaigns will need to figure out how to pace them through such a long slog, while also adjusting how they raise and spend money.

In recent days, both Biden and Trump have made flubs that drew attention to their age. During a recent White House event, Biden mixed up two of his cabinet secretaries, confusing Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

In New Hampshire last week, Trump mixed up Nikki Haley, who continues to challenge him for the nomination, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, delivering an extended riff in which he blamed Haley for failing to secure the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault that he has been accused of instigating.

Trump’s back-to-back wins in the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses made the head-to-head matchup appear inevitable. Although Haley has vowed to stay in the race, she faces such long odds of beating Trump that both parties are already treating the contest like a general election campaign.

This never happens as early as January. Even in the history of fast marches to the nomination, such as in 1996 and 2000, a competitive primary diverted at least one front-runner’s attention as late as March.

The lengthy rematch will test the stamina of the two nominees, redistribute the spending of campaign money and eat into the space for deal-making on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of millions of advertising dollars are expected to pour into roughly a half dozen swing states likely to determine the election. Both sides are hitting up donors to fund the protracted race.

Some voters are already weary.

“I want to get up every day, I’d like to see the news, have my cup of coffee—there are a lot of people like me—and you can’t do it because all of it is about the fighting back and forth,” said Alan Leo, 68, a retired food-industry worker from Waterville Valley, N.H., who spent the last couple of months knocking on doors and putting up signs for Haley.

Leo, who voted for Trump twice, said he can’t support the presumptive Republican nominee this time and won’t vote in a Biden-Trump rematch. “For me, there are no choices,” he said.

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