The coronavirus has been surrounding the 2020 election for nearly a year, and now hits it in the heart, with President Donald Trump’s nightly announcement that he tested positive for COVID-19. The bomb raises a series of practical and political questions about how it will unfold in the last month of this crusade.
The most important questions arise from the common uncertainty surrounding Trump’s condition: within hours, the president of the United States went from health to confined to a house with “benign symptoms,” to being hospitalized. On Friday afternoon, Trump was at camino. al Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment.
“As a precaution and on the advice of his doctor and medical experts, the president will run from Walter Reed’s presidential offices over the next few days,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.
On a practical level, Trump’s diagnosis airs the president’s schedule and key occasions in the coming weeks. Trump’s crusade announced early Friday that all past scheduled occasions involving the president or the first circle of relatives would be postponed or published. It is not yet known whether the next presidential debate, scheduled for October 15, will take place.
Vice President Mike Pence, who tested negative for the virus, is expected to debate On Wednesday, October 7, in Salt Lake City, a Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris. First in the presidential succession and work on a construction that is the site of an emerging outbreak. However, Pence has so far pledged to advance its public agenda. Trump’s crusade said Pence had tested negative for COVID-19 and “planned to resume his scheduled crusade chances. “(Harris also tweeted on Friday that he had tested negative. )Pence reportedly succeeded President Trump in a call with passers-by Friday.
Politically, the consequences of Trump’s diagnosis are also unclear, the effect on the election would possibly be minimal, despite the usual occasions in the contest, which come with the death of a Supreme Court justice, revelations about the president’s taxes, and a chaotic debate in Trump cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election: polls have been extremely stable , with Biden maintaining a stable advantage in national and state surveys. The main news has come and gone without turning the basics of competition.
But the president’s diagnosis of a fatal virus and the resulting hospitalization now put the pandemic, and its reckless control, directly at the peak of the final phase of the campaign. “This race has been incredibly stable, but it adds to the feeling that things are getting out of hand,” says Republican lobbyist Liam Donovan. “Even when the polls were ugly, it felt invincible to many people. Now they’re starting to sense the fact that they don’t have time to replace things anymore. Reality breaks the field force. “
There is a possibility that the country will bring its aid president together. When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized by the Covid-19 in April, his non-public approval score soared, but it was at the beginning of the pandemic, amid a largely popular national shutdown. Johnson’s approval receded as the pandemic continued.
“Depending on how this is treated on both sides, you may have a genuine ‘win-win’ moment for Gipper,” says Joe Brettell, a media representative who has worked on the afterlife for Republicans. The final results are based on the gravity component of Trump’s illness, Brettell says. “If he is able to succeed over this in a short period of time, he only reinforces the image: COVID would possibly have knocked down 200,000 Americans, but he wasn’t strong enough to defeat Donald J. Trump. “
Still, Democratic observers say the virus’s resurgence as a focal point of the crusade can only hurt Trump. “I think there would be more opportunities to ‘rally around the flag’ if it was a flag that he had honored, but the fact that he ignored the crisis is essentially a challenge for him,” says Democratic strategist David Axelrod, one of the senior advisers. “And his illness is emblematic of this contempt. “
Trump’s pandemic habit was very arrogant: he knowingly minimized the severity of the virus, continually violated public aptitude patterns, presented the concept of injecting bleach as a remedy, demanded that governors lift closing orders, hold rallies in city corridors opposed to qualified recommendations. and turned the mask dress into a cultural corner. “I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump told Biden in Tuesday night’s debate. “Every time he sees it, he has a mask. I may only speak two hundred meters away from him and show himself with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen. “
The president’s diagnosis also poses possible demanding political situations for Biden. The former vice president practiced social estating from the pandemic, even when Republicans mocked him as “Biden in the basement” for giving up a face-to-face program for virtual cross-country occasions. months of asymmetrical crusade, during which the president celebrated giant rallies and Biden was locked up in his home, things suddenly reversed: now, Trump is confined, while Biden gave the impression of being at the top level of the crusade, celebrating occasions in Pennsylvania before this week. and Michigan today. After Biden announced that he had tested negative on Friday morning, the crusade continued with his planned journey, though he condensed the stopover by cancelling one of his stopovers.
A less disciplined candidate could threaten to make a song about his opponent’s illness, as Trump did when Hillary Clinton contracted pneumonia in October 2016, mocking his stumbling into his car. Biden just tweeted his wishes to the president and the first girl on Friday morning, before starting his speech in Michigan on Friday giving thoughts and prayers for the first family.
“It’s a matter of politics,” he said, “it’s a stimulating reminder to everyone that we want to take this virus seriously. “For the rest of his speech, he focused on his Build Back Better economic recovery plan, leaving his mask all the time. Biden also removed all of his negative ads, according to Jonathan Martin of the New York Times.
Republicans can attack Biden for making a crusade when Trump can’t, an argument of little interest after months in which Trump made major demonstrations while Biden followed public fitness rules by organizing virtual or remote events. And Biden gave no indication that he planned to reduce his s, especially since the crusade has long established Covid-19 protocols that come with socially remote rhetoric and dressed in forced masks. In any case, Biden’s crusade is intensifying his election in the run-up to the election. Friday, Dr. Jill Biden to Minnesota on Saturday, Bernie Sanders is hosting a socially remote voter rally in New Hampshire this weekend, and Biden and Harris are making plans to make a stopover in Arizona next week.
For the president, contracting the virus “is the best metaphor for his lack of leadership on this issue,” Democratic strata Lis Smith said. “For months, months and months, he said it was a cold, don’t worry, and now see it out of the public eye because of that. This allows Biden to continue with the case. “
Reporting through Molly Ball/Washington