Tense campaign jolted as Trump is hospitalized
President at Walter Reed after positive test for virus
WASHINGTON » PresidentDonald Trump’s announcement Friday that he had contracted the coronavirus upended the presidential race in an instant, leaving both sides to confront a wrenching set of strategic choices and unexpected questions that will help shape the final month before Election Day.
As the president boarded Marine One to fly to theWalter Reed National MilitaryMedical Center for treatment, his aides announced that they were suspending his campaign events and those of his family members, who are his most ubiquitous surrogates. Privately, his top advisers expressed shock at the turn of events and hope that Trump’s symptoms would remain mild and he could at least begin appearing on television next week.
At the same time, Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival, disclosed that he had tested negative for the virus and said he would continue to campaign, beginning with a previously scheduled campaign trip on Friday to Michigan.
With Biden already leading in the polls, and Trump’s electoral prospectsdependent onhis ability to campaign, the president has little time to change the trajectory of the race. The fate of his reelection bid increasingly seemed to hinge on his own health — and whether he will able to overcome the illness and persuade voters to give
him another four years.
The split-screen between the candidates Friday represented a striking reversal from the last few months, during which Trump pushed on with his rallies and belittled Biden for adhering to health protocols and running a “basement campaign.”
The former vice president was careful to avoid anything that could be perceived as exploiting the situation Friday; at an appearance in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he did not criticize Trump for his handling of
the virus, and closed his remarks by calling on God to “protect the first family, and every family that is dealing with this virus.”
Biden’s campaign also moved to take down negative television commercials Friday that lashed Trump for his handling of the virus, according to a Democratic official familiar with the ad traffic. And Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, emailed the entire campaign urging itsmembers to “refrain from posting about the situation on social media.”
Biden’s aides said he had no plans to step away from his travels — at least for now.
The president’s illness is certain to keep the coronavirus pandemic front and center in the remaining weeks before the election, a development that would appear to favor Biden, whose campaign message is focused on criticism of Trump’s stewardship of the deadly disease.
In the White House, advisers to the president acknowledged that the positive test would remind voters of how dismissive Trump had been about the virus, not only with the neglect of his own safety but also in his overly rosy assessments about a pandemic that has killed more than 208,000 Americans. Trump’s recklessness, one adviser acknowledged, amounted to a political “disaster.”
For all the drama 2020 has delivered, the presidential race has been largely impervious to even momentous events, whether it was impeachment, the virus, unrest over racismand severe economic distress. Biden has enjoyed a steady lead in the polls since effectively claiming the nomination in April.
But an incumbent president testing positive for a
potentially deadly disease is of a greater order of magnitude.
Republicans worried Friday that Trumpwould have to remain in the hospital for a significant period of time, imagery they fear would be damaging at a moment whenmillions of Americans are already voting.
The president spent months disregarding and mocking the basic precautions, such as wearing a mask, that his health advisers were urging Americans to take to protect themselves.
Still, few Democrats had any degree of confidence on how the final weeks of the race would play out.
Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada said Biden should proceed. “I don’t see why he should quit campaigning unless something really bad happens,” Titus said. “And then all bets are off.”
What some Democrats feared, and Republicans hoped, is that there would be a rallying aroundTrump and he would garner sympathy from voters. Yet even the most optimistic Republican allowed that those sentiments wouldn’t automatically translate into
votes.
At the very least, Republicans said they hoped Trump’s illness would prompt himto refrain from the inflammatory rhetoric that has alienated many voters and make the election less of a referendum on his behavior.
“Peace and calm helps him,” said Alex Castellanos, a longtime Republican strategist. “He is the polarizing element, not the direction he would like to take the country.”
Trump’s political fortunes will depend in large part on the severity of his illness. Other world leaders, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, have been sickened by the virus and returned to lead their countries.
The 74-year-old president is older than his counterparts who have contracted COVID-19, however, and they were not on the ballot when they tested positive.
It is almost certain that the remaining two debates between Trump and Biden will be affected. The next one is scheduled for less than two weeks from now, on Oct. 15, and the president may be isolated until
then.
The nature of the campaign will be disrupted as well. And after having gone forward with the large rallies he craves, despite rules against large gatherings in many states, Trump will not be able to leave Washington during a final, crucial stretch of the campaign.
Moreover, one of his central arguments against Biden, that the 77-year- old former vice president is enfeebled and unfit to lead the country, has now been undermined by questions about the president’s own health.
“Trump is now in the position of becoming exhibit No. 1 for the failure of his leadership on coronavirus, andhe runs the risk thathis supporters will feel misled by his dismissiveness of the virus and the need for precautions,” saidGeoffGarin, a Democratic pollster.
( The president was already lagging in the polls in part because of his difficulties with older voters, a constituency that leans Republican but is also at the highest risk from the virus.
Some of Trump’s aides began the day Friday discussing ways for him to be seen by the public. But it became clear by the afternoon that was not possible, and they released a statement from his doctor acknowledging he was fatigued and was taking an experimental antibody drug combination.
In private conversations, members of his staff were also candid that the president had some underlying conditions that could make him more susceptible to a severe bout of the virus.
No modern president has publicly endured a health crisis this close to a reelection attempt. Ronald Reagan was shot and convalesced in 1981, just over two months after he was first sworn in. And Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while in office, but it wasmore than a year before he faced the voters for a second time.
Some Republicans hoped his ill-fated June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he couldn’t come close to filling the arena and some of his own staff members got the virus, would serve as a wake-up call.
But while the event put anend to his rallies for a period, it didnotmake Trump more sober about the threat of the virus.
The president restarted the rallies during the Democratic convention in August. The events have been mostly, but not always, outdoors, often in hangars at smaller airfields. Yet his supporters, journalists, White House staff members, security workers and others are around one another for hours at the rallies. And many of those who attend, including Trump and members of his staff, have not worn masks.
Trump’s stance onmasks has put him out of step with the majority of the country and even some in his party. Forty percent of Republicans said in a New York Times/Siena College poll last month that they supported a nationwide mask mandate when social distancing is not possible.