Biden and Trump are keeping relatively light campaign schedules as their rivals rack up the stops

In this combination of file photos, President Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Del., on March 12, 2020, left, and former President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington on April 5, 2020.

Their rivals are busy answering voters’ questions at town halls across South Carolina, glad-handing with business owners in New Hampshire and grinding to hit every one of Iowa’s 99 counties.

But the front-runners for their party’s nomination, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, are barely campaigning in crucial early-voting states as the primary season enters the fall rush.

Biden is attending a union parade in Philadelphia on Monday. But he has held just one campaign rally in the four-plus months since he formally launched his 2024 reelection bid. Trump, who complained of his Biden’s “basement strategy” in 2020, has not campaigned for three weeks now, last appearing at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 12.