As he gears up for reelection, President Biden is already facing questions about his ability to convince voters that the economy is performing well. There’s skepticism about the 80-year-old president’s ability to manage a second term. And on Friday, Mr. Biden faced a fresh setback when Attorney General Garland appointed a special counsel to probe his son, Hunter.

Mr. Biden’s challenges pale in comparison to his predecessor and possible future rival, Donald Trump, who is facing three criminal indictments, with additional charges expected soon. 

Yet the appointment of the special counsel was nonetheless a reminder of the vulnerabilities facing Mr. Biden as he wages another election campaign in a deeply uncertain political climate.

There was little immediate sign that Mr. Garland’s decision meaningfully changed Mr. Biden’s standing within his party. If anything, it underscored the unprecedented nature of the next election. 

Rather than a battle of ideas waged on the traditional campaign trail, the next push for the presidency may be shaped by sudden legal twists in courtrooms from Washington to Delaware and Miami.

“Prior to Trump, this would be a big deal,” the New Hampshire Democratic party chairman, Ray Buckley, said of Friday’s announcement. “Now, I don’t think it means anything. Trump has made everyone so numb to this stuff.”

Referring to Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, Mr. Buckley added, “Because of how dismissive MAGA America is to the very real crimes of Trump and his family, it has numbed the minds of swing voters and Democratic voters or activists who would normally be fully engaged and outraged.”

Polling has consistently shown that Democratic voters were not excited about Mr. Biden’s reelection even before Garland’s announcement.

Just 47 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to run again in 2024, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Democrats’ enthusiasm for Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign has consistently trailed behind Republicans’ enthusiasm for Mr. Trump’s: 55 percent of Republicans said they wanted Mr. Trump to run again in the AP-NORC poll. 

And Mr. Biden’s approval ratings, at 40 percent in the most recent Gallup poll, are lower than virtually every other president in the modern era save Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Garland announced Friday that he was naming the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware, David Weiss, as the special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation. It comes as plea deal talks involving tax and gun charges in the case Mr. Weiss had already been probing hit an impasse.

The appointment of a special counsel ensures that Mr. Trump will not stand alone as the only presidential candidate grappling with the fallout of a serious criminal investigation in the midst of the 2024 campaign season.

Republicans were hopeful that the new special counsel may ultimately shift attention away from Mr. Trump’s legal woes while bolstering conservative calls to impeach the Democratic president, a proposal that has divided the GOP on Capitol Hill, which has long sought evidence linking Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoings to his father.

Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has already obtained thousands of pages of financial records from various members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the Treasury Department and various financial institutions as part of a congressional probe. He released a statement Friday accusing Garland of “trying to stonewall congressional oversight.”

Mr. Comer vowed “to follow the Biden family’s money trail.”

Mr. Trump, the overwhelming front-runner in the crowded Republican presidential nomination fight, used the opportunity to put his likely general election opponent on the defensive, referring to the “Biden crime family” and the “Biden cartel.”

“If this special counsel is truly independent — even though he failed to bring proper charges after a four year investigation and he appears to be trying to move the case to a more Democrat-friendly venue — he will quickly conclude that Joe Biden, his troubled son Hunter, and their enablers, including the media, which colluded with the 51 intelligence officials who knowingly misled the public about Hunter’s laptop, should face the required consequences,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.

Back in New Hampshire, Mr. Buckley acknowledged that voters are not excited about Mr. Biden’s reelection.

“But they’re really not excited about Trump,” he said. “There’s a seriousness around this election. People can say they’re not excited (about Biden). They can say, ‘Oh, he shouldn’t run again.’ But the reality is that he’s the only alternative to Trump.”

Meanwhile, it’s unclear how closely key voters are paying attention.

A Marquette Law School Poll conducted last month found that about three-quarters of Americans had heard about Hunter Biden’s agreement to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of tax evasion and a gun charge. 

Republicans were slightly more likely than Democrats to say they have heard “a lot” about the topic, with independents being much less likely to be paying attention.

Associated Press