The record levels of coronavirus cases in the US come at the worst possible political moment for Donald Trump.
The president, who has spent months attacking voting by mail, needs a dramatic turnout on Election Day to have any hope of surpassing his weak poll numbers and the advantage Democrats have with voting by mail. But rising cases and rising hospitalizations in key states on the battlefield could dissuade some Republicans from voting, despite the party insisting that Trump supporters remain highly motivated to come forward.
The surge in cases also puts Trump on the defensive and maintains a late-race focus on his handling of the pandemic, which Democrat Joe Biden has made a central part of his campaign, and the president has spent the last few years. eight months minimizing the importance of the problem. virus and insisting that it would disappear.
“Up to a point, it’s going to cost him some votes,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who is chairman of the pro-Trump Great America political action committee. “Hopefully our vote will pay off, but I’d rather have them in the box than wait for them to come.”
Covid spikes will make it harder for Republicans to execute on their turnout plans, especially with polls showing Trump is behind Biden, said Kevin Madden, Republican strategist and senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
The concern for Trump is not only turnout, but also the economic anxiety that the pandemic has generated, how it has affected older voters who are an important electorate for the president, as well as working-class and rural voters who him They supported in 2016 and may “have a little bit of regret from buyers,” Madden said.
“If a voter walks into the polling place thinking about the coronavirus pandemic, they will leave after voting for Joe Biden,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, a state with record levels of hospitalizations and cases.
At the same time, there are also risks for Biden. Black voters, some of Biden’s staunchest supporters, have also been hit hard by Covid cases in the weeks leading up to elections in the key state of North Carolina. Experts say that could depress participation. But that state is an outlier: Nationally, the largest black communities have never had fewer cases of the virus compared to other counties.
The increase in cases could also cause a poll worker shortage that reduces the number of polling places in urban areas, disproportionately affecting Democratic voters. And there is concern that large numbers of mail-in ballots issued by Democrats in response to the pandemic may be rejected due to delays in delivery from the United States Postal Service or for technical reasons.
Any political impact from the coronavirus is already included in the race after eight months, so a spike now isn’t likely to make much of a difference, said Republican strategist Bryan Lanza, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign in 2016. Yes While the strong Democratic early voting is a concern if they are new voters and would not have voted anyway on Election Day, Trump supporters will be there for him, Lanza said.
“Your voters will run on Election Day regardless of what’s going on in the world,” Lanza said. “Whatever the fears of Covid, I don’t think it is enough to scare their voters.”
Another factor is that a record number of Americans have voted early. More than 69 million Americans have cast ballots by mail or in person, which far exceeds the total early votes of 2016 and represents more than half of the total vote count in 2016, according to the US Elections Project. .
Of the more than 33 million votes cast so far in states that report party registration data, Democrats make up 48% of the total and Republicans 29%, according to the same data.
Early Voter Turnout in the U.S. Exceeds 50% of All Ballots in 2016
At the same time, the virus statistics get worse every day. The United States reported 73,096 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, bringing the seven-day average to a record 71,532, according to the Covid Tracking Project. More than 226,000 people have died, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.
Despite Trump blaming the increase in cases on increased testing, current hospitalizations with Covid-19 have risen 36% to 44,212 in the past three weeks, after months of decline and a brief plateau. About 6% of inpatient beds in the United States are now occupied by Covid-19 patients, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The coronavirus spike is being driven by sharp increases in the Midwest and adjacent states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – three states that Trump won by a total of 77,744 votes in 2016 and needs to continue this year to win reelection.
Wisconsin now has the third worst number of cases per capita in the US in the past week, and it is getting worse, with the seven-day average increasing 23% in the past week. Weekly cases per capita increased 25% in Michigan and 33% in Pennsylvania in the past seven days, and current hospitalizations increased 27% in Pennsylvania, the 10th most in the US.
No undecided state has been immune as cases and hospitalizations have risen in most states, including Florida and Arizona. The pandemic is now hitting rural areas and white voters, key to Trump’s re-election, more strongly compared to other groups, and the record rise in Covid-19 that began with young Americans is increasingly reaching out to older communities at high risk of severe outcomes. .
Even after a first outbreak affected Trump and White House staff, a second outbreak came to light over the weekend when the chief of staff and other members of the inner circle of Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the group working on coronavirus that has been largely sidelined in recent months – contracted the virus. That hasn’t stopped Trump from saying the United States is “turning around” the pandemic and that the increase is part of a “fake news media conspiracy.”
“You turn on MSDNC, you turn on this network, it’s Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid,” Trump said at a rally Friday in Florida. “They want to scare you into trying to get you to vote for Biden.”
While Biden has held limited events without large crowds to contrast his response to the pandemic with Trump’s, the president has continued to hold boisterous rallies with crowded supporters and few in masks, even though Trump is only weeks away from your own battle against the virus. . Health experts fear the demonstrations could be wide-spread events.
“The bottom line is that Donald Trump is the worst possible president, the worst possible person to try to guide us through this pandemic,” Biden said during a campaign event Monday in Pennsylvania.
There are challenges with Covid that other countries face as well, but Trump’s approach will soon defeat the virus, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said on “Fox & Friends.” Politically, the Trump campaign is designed to get the vote, and state directors feel more confident of where they are now than they were in 2016, he said.
Still, some analysts say Trump is pursuing a risky strategy that relies on a strong vote on Election Day to overcome the Democrats’ lead with early voting, especially if some voters are staying home and unengaged voters want. hold you accountable for an uncontrolled coronavirus.
In Wisconsin, Trump’s handling of the coronavirus has gone from a 51% approval in March to a 56% disapproval in early October in the Marquette Law School poll, even as the majority still supports him on the economy. If the virus surge hurts the race, it probably hurts Trump more because more Republicans plan to vote on Election Day, said Charles Franklin, the poll’s director.
“I really think it’s a problem,” David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s former chief strategist, said on his “Hacks on Tap” podcast on Friday. “The virus has defined this election and can define the day of the election.”
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