WASHINGTON – In 2017, they donned pink hats to march on Washington, registering their fury with Donald Trump by the hundreds of thousands.

Then they flipped the House from Republican control, won the United States presidency and secured a surprisingly strong showing in the 2022 midterm elections, galvanised by their conviction that Trump and his allies constituted a national emergency.

In 2024, anti-Trump voters are grappling with another powerful sentiment: exhaustion.

“Some folks are burned out on outrage,” said Ms Rebecca Lee Funk, the Washington-based founder of the Outrage, a progressive activism group and a purveyor of resistance-era apparel.

“People are tired. I think last election, we were desperate to get Trump out of office, and folks were willing to rally around that singular call to action. And this election feels different.”

But for Democrats, the mission is similar: Now defending the White House, US President Joe Biden is trying to reassemble that sprawling anti-Trump coalition, casting the 2024 contest as another battle to save American democracy as Trump moves toward the Republican nomination.

Mr Biden, however, has a lot of work to do.

Interviews with nearly two dozen Democratic voters, activists and officials make clear his challenge in energising Americans who are unenthusiastic about a likely 2020 rematch, are worried about his age and, in some cases, are struggling to sustain the searing anger towards Trump that Democrats have relied on for nearly a decade.

‘Crisis fatigue’

“We’re kind of, like, crises-ed out,” said Ms Shannon Caseber, 36, a security guard in Pittsburgh who called the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch a “dumpster fire”.

She added: “It’s crisis fatigue, for sure.”

Ms Caseber, a Democrat who would back Mr Biden over Trump, added: “Any sense of urgency that we had with the 2020 election – I think it’s still there in the sense that no one wants Trump to be president, at least for Democrats, but it’s exhausting.”

Democrats are hardly alone in their political fatigue: A Pew Research Center survey in 2023 found that 65 per cent of Americans said they always or often felt exhausted when they thought about politics.

“Exhaustion is underlying the entire attitude toward our presidential election,” said Mr Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “When you’ve got two people that are opposed by 70 per cent of Americans who want a different choice, it creates frustration, anxiety and discouragement.”

Democratic pollsters and strategists say that no one is more motivating or terrifying to their voters than Trump.

Buoyed by strong showings in special elections last week, and other recent contests, including a successful write-in campaign for Mr Biden in New Hampshire’s primary, many believe their voters will grow increasingly engaged as the general election nears and Trump’s legal problems unfold.

He confronts 91 felony charges across four cases, is poised to be the first former president to face a criminal trial and now has staggering financial problems.

He has also privately expressed support for a 16-week national abortion ban, with some exceptions, The New York Times reported on Feb 16, and Democrats see abortion rights as a powerful motivator for their base and for some swing voters.

But there are pronounced warning signs on the left, as well.

A CNN poll recently asked how motivated Americans were to vote in the election. Republicans, out of power and eager to regain it, were more likely to say “extremely motivated”. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll asked voters in autumn 2023 about their attitudes toward the 2024 election. Thirty-nine per cent of Democrats picked “exhaustion” from the list of sentiments offered (a close second to “dread”). Just 26 per cent of Republicans chose “exhaustion”.

Broadly, surveys have shown erosion in the party’s standing with traditional Democratic constituencies. On the left, some groups have warned of funding challenges and voter apathy, and the most visible source of in-the-streets energy is progressive frustration with Mr Biden over his support for Israel.

A ‘palpable shift’

Ms Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Mr Biden, said there was tangible evidence of enthusiasm in recent weeks, including on the fund-raising front.

She also signalled that the campaign’s messaging would go beyond simply opposing Trump, drawing contrasts with Republicans on abortion rights and gun safety as she described the stakes of the election, and nodding to Mr Biden’s policy accomplishments on issues such as combating climate change and child poverty.

“This election determines whether we build on that progress or we lose so many of our fundamental freedoms,” she said in a statement.

Many Democrats have argued that the party must do more to press an affirmative case for Mr Biden’s re-election, beyond just stopping Trump again. They also worry that some voters could vote third party or sit out altogether.

“They hear it every cycle: This is the most important election ever,” said Ms Leah D. Daughtry, a Democratic strategist.

While she considers Trump an “existential threat”, she said, “people want to vote for something and not necessarily against something”.

Many Americans have been in denial about the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch. But as Trump moves closer to being renominated, some Democrats say their voters are beginning to grasp the significance of his return.

Representative Veronica Escobar, a Biden campaign co-chair, said she “heard some fatigue and some concern” in the recent past.

But after Trump won the New Hampshire primary, she said: “There has been a palpable shift. And it’s what I had hoped for. I hope we can sustain it and grow it.”

In Washington, Ms Funk of the Outrage suggested that to do so, some voters now “want to be reminded of what’s good about this country”.

“It’s been a long slog,” she added, “for those of us in the movement.” NYTIMES