COVID-19 COULD DERAIL DON ’20
The coronavirus poses an “existential threat” to President Trump’s 2020 re-election, campaign insiders and GOP operatives say.
“He’s not running against Joe Biden, he’s running against a virus, and the collateral damage from that,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon told The Post. “You could have a financial crash, economic great depression and a war against a bug all simultaneously . . . Today is November. [Trump] is going to be weighed and measured by the American people by how [he handles] the crisis.”
One Trump campaign operative was more blunt, saying, “If he f--ks up the economic stimulus around the coronavirus, he loses.”
He continued: “Donald Trump’s biggest hurdle to winning re-election has always been the economy. If the economy is going well and cruising along, he could have sailed to a re-election. If we hit that 20 percent unemployment mark, as the Treasury is projecting, it’s going to be hard to say that the economy is doing well.”
Polls so far offer a mixed bag. An ABC-Ipsos survey released Friday found 55 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, while just 43 percent disapproved — a near total reversal from what the same poll reported a week earlier. However, the president’s overall approval ratings have slumped from post-impeachment highs of 49 percent to the more typical 44 percent he had before the outbreak, according to Gallup.
“Everyone takes this extremely seriously,” a member of the Trump-Pence 2020 re-election campaign advisory board told The Post. “This is a one-off, act-of-God event. The question is what sort of long-term damage that it does. There are so many unknowns, we’ve never been here before. We haven’t had a total shutdown of the US economy before.”
After initially downplaying the seriousness of the virus, calling it a “little problem” that was “totally under control” just weeks ago, Trump has moved aggressively to combat the spread of the disease.
The administration shut down travel between the United States and Europe and declared a national emergency, freeing billions of federal dollars to fight the plague. Trump signed an economic stimulus package guaranteeing free testing and paid emergency leave Thursday. Additional aid, including potentially $1,200 checks to every American making less than $75,000 a year and a raft of new corporate tax cuts, is in the pipeline.
“It’s a war,” Trump said at a Wednesday press briefing. “I view it as a, in a sense, a wartime president.”
A presidential race once focused on issues such as climate change, income inequality and even reparations has been reordered to reflect the nation’s singular focus on the virus.
“This will undeniably be the biggest issue in the election,” GOP strategist Luke Thompson told The Post. “His presidency sinks or sails now on his handling of this.”
Some said the virus offered an opportunity for the president to demonstrate leadership and competence and that a home-run federal response would all but guarantee a second term.
“FDR won re-election in 1936 when unemployment was 17 percent because people thought he was fighting for them,” said GOP political consultant Ryan Girdusky.
“His argument will be is, “It’s me vs. the fake news, obstructionists Democrats and the China virus,’ ” said former 2016 Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Eventually people around him will start saying the Chinese did this to try and sink him. He’s got a great bogeyman out of this. Trump loves foils.
“Just in general, never count out Donald Trump,” Nunberg said.