There’s still a gaping partisan divide over masks, but a second chasm is emerging between Democrats and Republicans over a possible coronavirus vaccine announcement before the general election.
Like any hint of economic improvement before the Nov. 3 contest, a COVID-19 vaccine could tip public opinion in President Trump’s favor. That political reality means the 2020 Democratic ticket is now balancing its hopes for a vaccine with its White House aspirations.
2020 Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris this weekend overtly undermined any COVID-19 vaccine rolled out by the Trump administration in the fall. She told CNN Sunday she didn’t “trust” the White House incumbent.
“I will not take his word for it,” the California senator said. “He’s looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days, and he’s grasping to get whatever he can to pretend he has been a leader on this issue when he is not.”
Harris reiterated her concern in a Monday interview with WISN. She told the Wisconsin ABC-affiliate she’d wait until “the public health professionals and the scientists told us that we can trust it.”
2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden also broached the issue of trust during a Friday fundraiser. He was adamant “politics shouldn’t play any role” in vaccine development.
“My guess is he is going to announce a vaccine. He’s going to say it’s going to be available around Election Day. He’s going to hype it,” Biden told donors.
Yet Biden diverged from his running mate Monday. Instead, he tied his anxieties regarding Trump’s strategy to people being “reluctant” to take “a really good vaccine.”
“But pray [to] God we have it. If I could get a vaccine tomorrow, I’d do it. If it cost me the election, I’d do it. We need a vaccine, and we need it now,” he repeated.
The pair then issued a statement Tuesday asking for specifics on Trump’s plan for the vaccine, pointing out mistakes already made by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
“We cannot allow a repeat of Trump’s testing and personal protective equipment fiascos when it comes to a COVID-19 vaccine,” they wrote.
The focus on the safety and efficacy of a vaccine is a shift from when Biden was preoccupied with whether Trump would bungle its manufacture and distribution.
Biden, the two-term vice president, has proposed a $25 billion investment to ensure the population can be speedily vaccinated. For Trump’s part, Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership led by the Health and Human Services and Defense departments, is racing to deliver 300 million doses of a shot by January.
Trump, who himself has made anti-vaccine comments and administration appointments in the past, condemned Biden and Harris’s remarks during a Labor Day press conference while providing them with fodder for future attacks.
“We’re going to have a vaccine very soon. Maybe even before a very special day. You know what date I’m talking about,” he said, demanding an apology too.
The Trump campaign seized on the president’s complaints Tuesday.
“Their words aren’t just sowing fear and jeopardizing America’s economic recovery and reopening – they’re risking American lives,” spokesman Andrew Clark wrote of Biden and Harris.
The Democrats’ vaccine message, though, will likely resonate with voters given it echoes public sentiment.
A CBS News poll released over the weekend found confidence in a vaccine eroded over the summer. Roughly 1 in 5 respondents in September said they would get a shot straight away, down from about 1 in 3 in July. Almost two-thirds told researchers their first thought if a vaccine was announced before the election would be it had been “rushed.” Another 35% said it would be “a scientific achievement.” USA Today/Suffolk University polling published last week came to similar conclusions.
On top of the polling, nine pharmaceutical companies pledged Tuesday not to submit vaccine candidates to the FDA until they’ve conducted large clinical trials. CEOs from companies, such as AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer, vowed to follow “high ethical standards and sound scientific principles” amid skepticism.
Lanhee Chen, Mitt Romney’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign’s policy director, hesitated to describe divisions over a vaccine as “partisan.” In an interview, he said his instinct was there would be broader acceptance of a vaccine compared to masks since both parties were talking about it “as the one pathway through which we returned to ‘life as normal.'”
For Chen, the other consideration was the wider anti-vaxxer movement wasn’t governed by political ideology, meaning there would likely be less of a partisan split. He said those on the Right shun vaccines due to the perception they’re an “imposition of the state,” while those on the Left eschew them for “holistic health reasons.”
“I suppose a lot of it will get into the efficacy question,” he told the Washington Examiner. “The reason why the mask- wearing debate is a debate is because there are questions about efficacy, and there was conflicting guidance from U.S. agencies.”
Stanton Glantz, the founding director of University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, emphasized safety and efficacy as well. However, he defended associates he knew were working on a vaccine, saying they were “moving as quickly as they think they can move responsibly.”
Although Glantz believed Trump had encouraged misinformation about COVID-19 by “empowering and amplifying” “fringe forces” through his policy decisions and rhetoric, he added context.
“This is something that we’ve had to deal with in one form or another for a long, long time,” Glantz said, citing the tobacco industry.
Chen advised both campaigns to stick to sound public health talking points rather than going on tangents that stoke culture wars.
“When you’re treading into an area that’s potentially a little bit dangerous or a little bit charged, the best way to remove that charge is really to focus on the questions of administration and what can the federal government actually control,” he said.
