3 reasons coronavirus could cost Trump the 2020 election

US President Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis could cost him the 2020 election, according to at least one US politics and foreign policy analyst.

“Only 10% of registered voters, compared to 20% at this time back in the 2016 presidential elections, haven’t yet decided who to vote for,” explained Prof. Eytan Gilboa, a senior research associate at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. 

Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden are fiercely campaigning to win some of those votes, especially in the swing states. This coronavirus diagnosis could plague Trump’s last month and be the winning prescription for his competitor.

Gilboa offered three reasons why:

More than half (52%) of Americans believe the government did a poor job handling the pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center report published at the end of August. 

“He ignored it,” Gilboa said of Trump’s first response to coronavirus. “He blamed China, the media, the Democrats – everybody else for the pandemic.”

Trump so badly did not want to take responsibility for handling the disease that he deliberately minimized its danger, something he reportedly admitted to journalist Bob Woodward: “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.

The president spoke out against his own government’s health experts, contradicting them on multiple fronts, but especially on the need to wear masks. In June, he even told The Wall Street Journal that Americans who chose to wear masks were doing so just to show their disapproval of him.

Only a few days ago, during the first presidential debate, he ridiculed Biden for wearing a “big” face mask. Now, said Gilboa, Trump’s sickness exposes his mistake. 

Gilboa pointed out that Trump was against any lockdowns to help curb the spread of the pandemic. He felt that lockdowns would hurt the economy too much. 

He tweeted against the heads of the states of Michigan, Los Angeles, Oregon and others, even urging his supporters to demonstrate against them.

In April, he tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” 

While America failed to lockdown, some 7.3 million Americans caught coronavirus – and now Trump is one of them.

The president is known for his rallies and they had just come back in full swing as he entered the final stretch of his reelection campaign. 

“He did very well at these gatherings,” Gilboa said, noting that it was at those events he succeeded most at “galvanizing and motivating his base.”

Now, coronavirus quarantine means the president will not be able to hold these huge events for at least a week, if not more, when he needs them most. 

There is, of course, also a question of just how sick the president will become. 

According to the World Health Organization, around one in every five people who are infected with coronavirus develop difficulty in breathing and require hospital care. And there are some people who are at greater risk than others.

The Health Ministry said that people who are aged over 60 years, and people who have underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease or hypertension, are among those who are at greater risk of developing severe or critical illness if infected with the virus.

Trump is an overweight, 74-year-old male.

“If he is hospitalized with a severe case, the Republican Party may have to select someone else – it’s an extreme scenario, but with coronavirus it is possible,” Gilboa said.