More Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus than approve of it, but he can portray himself as the man best able to lead an economic recovery.
Photo: Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg News
If there was any doubt remaining, it has been eliminated: With precisely six months to go before voting in November, the country is headed toward a coronavirus presidential election.
The virus crisis and its economic aftershocks not only consume the country today, but are making the question of how President Trump handles them the defining campaign issue. An election that always was destined to be a referendum on the incumbent now will be even more so.
That framing isn’t doing President Trump any favors right now. In fact, it’s easy to see the significant liabilities he is carrying.
Less obvious are some key assets he still holds. Yet they also are considerable, and shouldn’t be overlooked in this moment.
For now, the crisis appears to be a drag on the president’s re-election hopes. “Donald Trump’s chances for reelection have diminished significantly due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus,” argues Doug Sosnik, who was White House political director for President Bill Clinton, in a new analysis of the 2020 election landscape.
More Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus than approve of it. He trails the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, by seven points in the newest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll; other surveys have similar readings.
Worse for Mr. Trump, he trails Mr. Biden in the latest polls in each of the six states that figure to decide the race: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Two of those states—Michigan and Pennsylvania—have been especially hard-hit by the coronavirus, in both health and economic terms.
One of the Trump campaign’s main lines of attack—that Democrats have become a party of big-government, big-spending socialists—has been eroded as the president leads a robust government response to the pandemic, complete will trillions of dollars of new government aid to all quarters of society.
Yet as big as the coronavirus shock has been, it hasn’t fundamentally altered the contours of the presidential race. Americans are so locked into their political alignment, and their views of Mr. Trump, that even a jolt as big as this one affects the race mostly at the margins.
And in that environment, Mr. Trump still has significant assets. Here are four of them:
—He can portray himself as the man best able to lead an economic recovery. Voters aren’t entirely pleased with the way Mr. Trump has handled the coronavirus outbreak, but by fall the key issue for voters may not be health but financial: How does the country get out of an economic ditch?
And one prominent Democratic strategist frets privately: “I worry they will think they need a businessman to get us out of that.” Mr. Trump already is honing this argument: I led a roaring economy once, and I can do it again.
—Many persuadable voters may be more disposed to Mr. Trump than commonly imagined. Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling late last year, before the coronavirus struck, found a troubling alignment for the president. Almost half of voters, 48%, said they felt certain they would vote against Mr. Trump, while just 34% said they were certain to vote for him.
That leaves the president almost no margin for error. If that framework holds, he would have to pick up almost all of the 18% who said their choice depended on who became the Democratic nominee. They are the persuadable voters who will determine the outcome.
The good news for Mr. Trump is that many of these voters appear available to him. Many are soft Republicans, Independents, young men and people who approve somewhat of his job performance. They were more likely to have voted for him than for Hillary Clinton in 2016, are more moderate and conservative than liberal, and don’t show much enthusiasm for Mr. Biden. And remember: Mr. Trump doesn’t have to win a majority of the popular vote, just enough votes in the key states to win the Electoral College.
—Mr. Trump knows how to win an unpopularity contest. One of the secrets to the president’s success is that people don’t have to like him to vote for him. One admiring essay circulating on Facebook says flatly: “When you think the President is a jerk, he is.” But, it adds: “He is a guy that demands performance.”
So one goal of the Trump campaign will be to drive up the unfavorable views of Mr. Biden, in an effort to even the score on that front. Mr. Biden won’t be as easy to demonize as was Mrs. Clinton, but the effort is under way.
—The Trump campaign has a cash advantage. Money isn’t everything in a campaign, but it certainly helps. And right now, the Trump campaign and the Republican party have a big edge over the Democrats.
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
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