Dems, GOP forge virus into campaign

WASHINGTON » The coronavirus already is coloring the 2020 campaign, with Democrats convinced President Donald Trump’s response to the outbreak leaves him and down-ballot Republicans vulnerable over the health crisis, his competency and — potentially most damaging — the staggering economy.

Republicans are fighting back by accusing Democrats of politicizing the fight against the virus and COVID-19, the sometimes deadly disease it causes. But mostly, a nervous GOP is hoping administration actions will reverse the stock market’s nosedive, avert a recession and control the coronavirus in just a few months.

That could allow time to prevent the problems from becoming Trump’s Hurricane Katrina and defining November’s election battles for the White House and Congress. President George W. Bush was harshly criticized for his administration’s belated handling of the deadly 2005 storm, which battered New Orleans, damaged his presidency and contributed to the GOP’S loss of House control the following year.

“The economy has been his whole schtick,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA., who once headed the House GOP’S campaign committee. “If the market tanks and the economy goes down, I think Trump’s whole reason for being in office goes away.”

Added Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster, “The way you respond to crises can be make-orbreak moments for elected officials.”

People in both parties say a recession and rampant disease outbreak would cripple Trump’s reelection and Republican efforts to capture House control and defend the party’s Senate majority. That’s an edge Democrats are primed to exploit.

Democrats’ first ads on the theme have only started trickling out. Yet they point to GOP soft spots Democrats detect and the emotional appeals they’ll make.

Before quitting the Democratic presidential race this month, Mike Bloomberg ran two ads that implicitly challenged Trump’s ability to manage the crisis. The Democraticbacked group Protect Our Care began airing a spot last week in Montana asserting that the state’s GOP senator, Steve Daines, “doesn’t worry” about families’ health concerns, including the coronavirus. It depicts a concerned mom hovering over her daughter, who lies bedridden in a hospital.

Daines, who faces a competitive reelection race this November, has favored repealing former President Barack Obama’s health care law, though there’s no proof that Daines is unconcerned about the coronavirus. Jesse Hunt, spokesman for the Senate GOP’S campaign committee, said Democrats are running “disgusting attack ads that politicize a disease that knows no party.”

Short of campaign ads, both sides have used news releases and emails to dual over the virus.