Trump’s COVID-19 antics might just win him reelection
By Dahleen Glanton
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Most Americans are appalled, if not enraged, by the way Donald Trump has acted since testing positive for COVID-19.
When we think he can’t get any worse, he comes up with a new stunt that makes our blood boil. That’s exactly what Trump wants. Every good political showman knows that drama creates energy, and that translates into votes.
Not our votes, of course. We’re spectators on the sidelines of an invitation-only performance for his zealous and loyal base — the roughly 40% of Americans who have stuck with him through scandals no other president could have withstood.
As ridiculous as it seems, contracting the coronavirus — and seemingly overcoming it — might be the best thing that could have happened to Trump weeks away from the election.
He has masterfully turned the diagnosis most of us initially thought would be a politically humiliating, game-changing disaster into an effective reelection strategy.
Every movement — from his drive-by on Sunday, his abrupt departure from the hospital, his photo op on the White House balcony to his videotaped tweet urging Americans not to let COVID “take over your lives” — was meticulously orchestrated.
If you’re offended by any of this, you definitely weren’t on his guest list.
We’re not stupid, though. Weall know exactly what he’s upto. Whatwedon’t know
— and what scares us — is whether this dangerous, unorthodox strategy might work.
I’m here to warn you that it absolutely could.
Trump knows exactly how to play to his base. What he needs more than anything if he has any chance of winning reelection is for his people to be energized.
He doesn’t care what die-hard anti-Trumpers think of his antics. He knows he’ll never get our vote. So like any savvy politician, he’s not wasting time in this final stretch of the campaign trying to win us over.
The more outraged we get over Trump’s performances, the more excited his base gets. In this game of one-upsmanship the two sides have been playing for four years, Trump supporters get a big ego boost seeing their opponents in a tizzy.
They can feel the momentum growing, and Trump has promised them a victory on Nov. 3 even if he loses.
It’s very likely that Joe Biden will win the popular vote by a landslide, as Hilary Clinton did in 2016. She defeated Trump by nearly 3 million votes. But as you know, the popular vote doesn’t decide the winner. The Electoral College does.
Though more than 136 million votes were cast nationwide, only about 80,000 voters put him in the White House. A mere 10,704 voters in Michigan, 46,765 in Pennsylvania and 22,177 voters in Wisconsin gave Trump the edge needed to win the electoral vote.
The troubling thing is that he didn’t even do all that well in those states. He narrowly won Michigan by 0.2 percentage points, Pennsylvania by 0.7 and Wisconsin by 0.8. But combined, they gave him 46 electoral votes.
If Clinton had done better there, we would have been spared these past four years of torment. But there’s no use in crying over the past. We have to look forward.
The most recent polling averages show Biden with a 5.6% lead in Wisconsin, 6.5% in Pennsylvania and 5.8% in Michigan. Fourteen other battleground states could also be in play this year, and Biden is ahead in all of them except Texas, according to the averages complied by RealClearPolitics.
Most of the polls, however, fall within the margin of error, which means it’s not a sure thing. A win in nearly any combination of the battleground states could push Trump over the top.
Of course, the same would be true for Biden, but Trump has something he doesn’t. Trump is going into this election with an incumbent’s advantage. He will wake up on Election Day with an automatic 40%.
These steadfast supporters stuck with him through an impeachment, a $130,000 payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair, reports that he only paid $750 in federal taxes and a botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If he can get them to the polls, all he needs is a handful of other voters in key states to push him over the top.
A CNN poll released Tuesday showed Biden leading Trump 57% to 41% among likely voters. While 90% said they’ve already decided whom to vote for, 8% said they might change their mind and 1% said they were undecided.
It’s a small window of opportunity, but if Trump can siphon a handful of voters away from Biden in the right states, he has a good shot at reelection.
Otherwise, he’s hoping that Democratic voters in battleground states stay home. He knows they aren’t nearly as fired up over Biden as his supporters are for him.
Even his behavior at last week’s debate was part of his master plan. While we were complaining about how brash and offensive it was, his core supporters, most notably the far-right group the Proud Boys, saw it as a rallying call.
His recent coronavirus theatrics drew praise from one of his most influential supporters on Monday. Fox Newshost Sean Hannity compared Trump’s handling of COVID-19 to the heroic actions of wartime leaders President Franklin Roosevelt and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
His base ate it up. Some Republican-leaning voters who aren’t willing to admit it publicly probably loved it too.
On Election Day, they could decide to give him a standing ovation.
Dahleen Glanton is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.