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But when the New York Times/Siena polling outfit asked voters "to describe the one thing they remembered most from Donald J. Trump's presidency, only 5 percent of respondents referred to Jan. 6, and only 4 percent to COVID." 39 percent cited "Trump's behavior" as most memorable, and another 24 percent named "the economy."

Aside from the radical shrinkage of COVID and January 6 in the rearview mirror, what's remarkable about this reaction is that it had little to do with what we normally think of as specific events, much less issue positions. As political scientist Seth Masket commented, complaints (mostly coming from Biden supporters) about "Trump's behavior" may well stem from initial reactions to his conduct even before he became president, while positive assessments of "the economy" under Trump are vague:

The Times' own analysis of these rather startling numbers attributes them to "recency bias," suggesting that voters are letting their current concerns (particularly about inflation) distort their memories of the not-so-distant past. But they also suggest that voters have formed a fixed opinion of Trump and his presidency that may be very difficult to change. If COVID and January 6 are not front of mind when voters think of 2020 and 2021, and the economy as it was in 2019 is recalled as Elysian, what does that say about the Biden campaign's efforts to remind people of Trump's responsibility for the reversal of Roe v. Wade? Will voters accept that a Very Bad Thing that happened long after Trump left office was actually his fault?

As it happens, a new survey of registered voters was released last week from Navigator Research showing that a sizable number of Americans, incredibly enough, held Biden responsible for "the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the elimination of the federal right to an abortion." That opinion was held by 34 percent of self-identified independents, 32 percent of Black voters, and 42 percent of Hispanic voters. It helps explain why the Biden campaign is devoting so much energy to connecting the dots between Trump's Supreme Court appointments and the Dobbs decision. But it also suggests public perceptions of Trump are very hard to change, and that's a big problem for Democrats.