It is becoming increasingly clear that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump can — or should — be his respective party’s nominee for president of the United States in 2024.

Why?

For Biden, the first reason is his unrelentingly poor standing in the polls.

Only 42% of Americans approve of the president’s overall job performance, while an even smaller percentage (36%) approve of his handling of the economy, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

Biden’s job ratings have barely changed over the last year and a half.

Recent signs of an improving economic outlook — with inflation’s pace slowing while job growth remains steady and unemployment stays low — have done little to boost his standing in the polls, which suggests at least that Democrats can’t win on the issue with this messenger.

Second, Biden’s candidacy could face complications stemming from the breakdown of Hunter Biden’s plea agreement and the appointment of David Weiss as a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation.

It now appears likely the case against Hunter will go to trial, in which case the president could find himself on the witness stand, as the first son’s lawyer told federal prosecutors, in the middle of his reelection campaign — resulting in a political inconvenience at best, a constitutional crisis at worst.

Third, there are legitimate and lingering questions about the president’s age, mental fitness and ability to serve a second term.

Beyond the gaffes most Americans have become accustomed to at this point, the media’s focus on Biden’s health and mental acuity — at the expense of the issues — will only intensify as the election grows closer.

Indeed, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where the president, at age 80, is able to endure the rigors of a traditional cross-country campaign, on top of doing his job effectively.

Republicans certainly won’t let Biden get away with another so-called basement campaign akin to the one he ran in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, which this time around would be waged from the White House Rose Garden.

The president is clearly an untenable candidate — but so is the twice-impeached and four-times-indicted previous president, Donald Trump, who faces 91 criminal counts across four separate trials in three jurisdictions.

While the charges hanging over Trump’s head may have helped him consolidate support in the Republican primary thus far, they’re a serious impediment to his presidential campaign for multiple reasons.

Practically speaking, there’s the issue of Trump running out of money as his legal fees pile up.

Since January 2021, Trump’s PAC has spent about $40 million on legal bills to defend the former president and his associates against a wide array of federal and state charges.

Reports indicate that 10 cents of every dollar Trump’s raised from small donors has gone toward covering legal costs — which is financially unsustainable.

From a messaging perspective, the multiple indictments Trump faces effectively preclude him from talking about anything besides the past when the Republican Party is desperately in need of a forward-looking platform.

Relitigating the 2020 election and airing Trump’s personal grievances was a losing strategy for Republicans in 2022 and will be no different in 2024.

Beyond the White House, Trump’s presence will very likely sink moderate GOP candidates down-ballot, as it did in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

Trump’s national polling numbers are underwater, even more so than Biden’s.

Though Trump leads the GOP primary field by nearly 40 points, his standing with the electorate is much weaker: Just 39% of Americans view him favorably, per FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages.

To be sure, Trump’s true believers — the MAGA base — will support him so long as he is in the race, yet these voters are barely one-quarter of the overall electorate.

To clarify, our argument is not intended to be a partisan one; nor is it to suggest one of these candidates is in a better position than the other.

One of us, Schoen, supported Biden in 2020 and will likely vote for the Democratic nominee again next year. The other, Stein, supported Trump in both 2016 and 2020 and will do so again if given the choice between the former president and the current one.

Rather, we write this because the problems with both this election’s leading candidates are so glaring and objective, we’re forced to look beyond our partisan differences.

We write not as one Democrat and one Democrat who leans Republican — but as two Americans concerned our global adversaries are preying on our internal disarray and the challenges we face at home will fester if left to an incapable leader.

Our views are also in lockstep with the majority of the electorate.

There is little appetite for a Biden vs. Trump rematch — according to a CNN poll, 62% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents want their party to nominate someone other than Trump, as do 59% of Democrats with respect to Biden.

We have each been involved in electoral politics for nearly five decades yet have never seen America more divided, more polarized or weaker than it is now.

We are calling on both parties to chart a path forward together; this very well might begin with Trump accepting a plea deal that allows him to avoid jail time on the condition that he withdraws from the race, which would inadvertently provide an impetus for Biden to bow out of the race as well.

Only then can both parties put forward inclusive, competent leaders and begin rebuilding the American consensus that has served us so well for so many years.

Douglas Schoen was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign, a White House adviser (1994-2000) and an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 US Senate campaign. Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.