Will Covid-19 determine the outcome of November 2020?

We can think of three possible scenarios at the point of the November 2020 elections:

1) The virus turns out to be a dud and goes away in warmer weather, as predicted by Trump. If this is the case, Trump will continue to brag about how right he was and how he handled the crisis. He will win in a landslide.

2) We get somewhat of an outbreak, but number of deaths are not much worse than from flu in a bad flu season. In this case, I think Trump still wins, because of the weakness of Biden as a candidate, but the win will be close.

3) We get a full-blown outbreak with 10,000s deaths and millions in critical condition, many in ICU. This will go along with severe disturbance of the economy, GDP will drop to 0, or negative for a month or two. In this case, Trump will lose.

Now, I'd gladly trade another four years of Trump for scenario one.

Note that in scenario 3, Trump would still only have himself to blame, because he should have treated the virus with the seriousness that it deserves from the beginning, instead of using it as a campaign talking point. He still has time to rectify his initial error in judgement, but the window is closing fast. Will he?

 

Actually, I think the virus is going to be secondary as far as Trump's reelection is concerned - it's the economic impact
that is ALREADY happening that will be the determiner. Even people who voted for Trump don't really like Trump, and
the only reason they support him is if the economy is healthy. Goldman Sachs is already predicting ZERO economic growth over the next 12 months. The DOW is in negative territory for the year - people may not understand the ins-and outs of politics, but they do understand when they start losing money in their retirement plans.

 

He has treated this outbreak seriously from the beginning as evidenced by him restricting air travel from the affected countries while of course being called the obligatory racist. This show is being ran by the CDC and he most certainly is not standing in their way in any fashion.

If millions were to be in ICU as you assert as part of scenario 3, it would most certainly not be his fault (10's of thousands of deaths however would be more analogous to scenario 2). To pretend like one man would be responsible for a worldwide virus started in China is nonsensical, yet I have no doubt that the left would work tirelessly to push that narrative. They already are. They are acting as if this is their only chance to win the election this year, and they may very well be right.

 

For sake of argument, lets say that the economy goes from its current high, to completely tanking in a few months as a result of this virus.

In that scenario, the bad economy would most certainly not be his fault. Typically, when a recession hits the President takes the blame due to his policies (fairly or unfairly), but his economic policies would clearly not be the culprit when it is due to a worldwide pandemic. If the people were to have the perception that Trump is good for the economy (which seems to be the prevailing belief right now), they would still likely vote for him because they would likely believe that he would be the best choice to take us out of a crashed economy that is a result of factors entirely out of anyones control.

You could certainly hope that they blamed the President like with a normal recession, but you have to acknowledge that the dynamics in that scenario would likely be different than the dynamics of a regular recession. It seems to me that in order to have him pay the price for a bad economy resulting from the virus, you would need to successfully have him take the blame for that virus, and while the left will no doubt try, that seems like a long shot to make it stick.

 

Not really. The swings in economics are always placed on the President's doorstep no matter how far they are removed from policy. Just the way of the world. Obama was blamed for a recession that was already well under way before he took office.

Of course, Trump's base won't blame him, but they would vote for him no matter what. It's the swing votes in the center
that decide elections, and what they are looking at is the value of their retirement plans and if they are afraid
they might get laid off work and they will be looking for someone to blame if they are afraid.

 

I agree that they typically do, but even you have to acknowledge that this scenario would be unlike any before. With all other recessions the person in power would take the blame due to their economic policies. You truly could not attribute this to economic policy. You would no doubt try to make it stick, that much we can take to the bank. My point is that you have to also acknowledge that the dynamics would be unlike anything prior. Not only would it not be his fault, but it would also be a RAPID decline from a truly booming economy only a few months prior. There is not a book out on how the public would react in such a scenario.

 

But the economy wasn't "booming". There were already signs of trouble. The GDP was stagnant and consumer debt was getting out of control. The market has been looking for an excuse for a correction for a couple of years. The economy has been living off borrowed money for decades. $22 trillion in debt? A debt to GDP ratio of over 100%? Now that's "fake" if anything is.

 

I have zero interest in playing the cherry pick a couple out of the thousands of economic indicators to back up your pre conceived notions game.

There is a reason why he is getting such high approval ratings on his handling of the economy. That perception alone is all that is relevant. The American people as a whole are giving him credit for a booming economy.

Neither of us have the ability to prove our point. They are mere opinions. Time will tell. There really is not a reason for us to continue bickering back and forth on the subject.

 

I don't know, wearing campaign gear to the CDC meeting doesn't seem like taking the virus seriously. Telling people that his "hunch" is that the death rate is much lower than estimated doesn't seem like taking the virus seriously.

Right now, people can't get tested, because of lack of test kits. THAT should be the first priority, instead of political posturing.

In the end, it won't matter. If loved ones die because they couldn't get testing, their relatives will blame Trump, whether it is his fault or not. That's the nature of being president. Other presidents were blamed for events that were not their fault, Trump will be no exception. The only thing he can do is keep politics out of it and tell the American people the actual FACTS, not his spin of them. So far, it doesn't look good on that front.

 

He has no trouble taking credit for a healthy economy, something he had very little to do with. The only economic policies he's had so far are the trade fiascos that required you and I to pay billions to farmers and his tax cut for the wealthy, which has added $1.7 trillion to the deficit.

No, this disease is not Trump's fault, but if he would a) shut up and stop downplaying it, giving us lies about the numbers right after his experts have given us the true numbers, and b) re-establish the networked team of professionals that the Obama administration created in order to deal with such scenarios, we would all be better informed and better prepared.

It also doesn't help that he severely cut the budgets for the CDC and the NIH two years ago.

 

"Perception" is the key word. Facts don't matter to those who see Trump as a hero.

 

The one thing that has brought Progressives to their knees ---- praying for thousands of Americans to die. What a fine bunch of people.

 

That particular belief is why Trump won in 2016 and will again in November. Even those of us who think of Trump as sometimes crude and boorish still support him because he represents our much deeper dislike of the left and their destructive politics and policies. After Trump America will continue to elect men like him and will do so until there is no left ending one of the worst chapters in our history. Think of it as a war the left will ultimately lose.

 

Who is praying for anyone to die? Please provide proof in the form of specific quotes.

 

What “initial” error?

 

Corona will decide the 2020 election if the msm’s propaganda is believed by the masses.

 

Only idiots would blame Trump for a world wide virus. His voters are not idiots.

 

What you call downplaying I call calming the panic and hysteria.

 

You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to miss the left fringe media breathlessly tying the pandemic to the 2020 election. If you're saying that Democrats are above praying for Americans to die to satisfy a political objective, like they did when they put assault rifles in the hands of the drug cartels to defeat the 2nd Amendment, you should buy a mirror and find out just who you are.

 

Only if Joe keeps sniffing girls necks and rubbing his hands all over little children, then it might affect the outcome if he gets it.

 

Take it back. I stated on my OP that I'd trade four more years of Trump for the virus outbreak to stop. You've been listening too much to Don Junior and Fox news, who tell you that more than half of Americans are your enemies.

 

At one point, even Fox news propaganda will not be able to deny the seriousness of this outbreak. If people get sick and won't be able to get tested, guess who they'll blame? It won't matter whether it is Trump's fault or not, the buck stops a the top.

 

Could be.

 

It will have to exceed the regular flu deaths before it will really affect the election.

CDC: 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., highest death toll in 40 years

 

He did. And please note Trump isn't alone in believing this goes away as the warmer weather arrives. Now, of course, since this is brand new on the scene it's hard to make a precise estimate about anything concerning it. And yes there are people dumb enough to think it has something to do with Carona beer, God help us all that such people contribute to the gene pool, none the less what it is and how it affects the population as a whole will be unknown until it does. Right now it appears that if you don't fall into one of three groups the most it's going to do is put you out if commission for a few days. The first is people with auto immune disorders and the second is old folks with some sort of respiratory illness, the last as usual is diabetics. Apparently there is nothing on God's green earth that diabetes doesn't make worse.