COVID is back — as campaign issue
GOP hopefuls use uptick in cases as new talking point
More than three years after the onset of the pandemic, Republican presidential hopefuls are taking renewed aim at strategies to combat the coronavirus amid an uptick in cases in recent weeks, even though hardly any Americans view COVID19 as the most important problem facing the country today.
The increase in cases, and the possibility of another surge entering the fall and winter, have led to scattered efforts to reinstate small public health measures, including a 10-day mask mandate in a classroom at a Maryland elementary school experiencing an outbreak and the reappearance of free KN95 masks in New York schools.
But even such measures have been vilified by Republican White House candidates. Last month, former president Donald Trump promised that if reelected, he would use every available authority to cut funding “to any school, college, airline, or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.”
Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina stressed last Thursday that he and his supporters would “stand against mandates, lockdowns, and school closures.” On the same day, standing behind a podium with a sign that read “MASKING FREEDOM,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis devoted a news conference in Jacksonville to declaring that mask mandates would never return to his state.
In a Gallup poll released in June, concern over catching COVID fell to a record low, and a majority of Americans surveyed said for the first time that they believed the pandemic was over. Very few Americans identify coronavirus or other diseases as the most important issue facing the country, according to a Gallup poll released last month. But it has not stopped Republican candidates from relitigating the pandemic response.
Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist not affiliated with any of the presidential campaigns, said that if he were advising a candidate, he would tell them to keep talking about the issue since it is an “incredibly safe” topic with “little downside” for the Republican base. “Primaries, elections in general, are about turnout, and turnout is about motivating and exciting voters, giving them a reason to vote,” Bliss said. “And this is a very motivating issue” and “one of the defining culture issues of our time.”
On the campaign trail, the handling of the pandemic has emerged as a way for DeSantis to try to differentiate his policies from those of the Trump administration. Early on in the pandemic, DeSantis had praised Trump for his leadership and efforts to expedite the development of coronavirus vaccines. But he has since become a critic of the vaccines and the pandemic response.
Interrupting a back-and-forth between former vice president Mike Pence and Vivek Ramaswamy during the first Republican presidential debate, DeSantis asked, “Why are we in this mess?” He continued, “Part of it, and a major reason, is how this federal government handled COVID-19 by locking down this economy,” and added, “It was a mistake. It should have never happened.”
Trump, in turn, has been attacking DeSantis over how the Florida governor handled the pandemic in his state. In January, Trump accused DeSantis of trying to rewrite history, saying that “Florida was closed for a long period of time.”
Some Republican candidates, such as former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, have framed the issue in a way that suggests the return of mitigation efforts in school is an attack on parental rights. That issue, namely that parents do not have enough input on the educational experiences of their children in publicly funded spaces like libraries and schools, gained prominence during the pandemic over concerns about masking in schools, vaccine mandates, and school closures.