If elected, Joe Biden is going to send you to the basement. That’s part of President Trump’s argument to voters in the final hours of the 2020 presidential campaign.
“The Biden plan will turn America into a prison state locking you down, while letting the far-Left rioters roam free to loot and burn,” Trump warned supporters in Iowa.
Biden has made Trump’s management of the pandemic central to his own pitch to the electorate, claiming that the death toll stems from what he characterizes as a chaotic and erratic federal mitigation effort. Echoing his running mate Kamala Harris during the vice presidential debate, the Democratic presidential candidate recently called Trump’s COVID-19 response “the greatest failure of presidential leadership in our nation’s history.” Trump seeks to undercut that case by arguing all Biden will do is resume costly economic lockdowns.
Over the weekend, Trump framed the election as a “choice between a deadly Biden lockdown” or “a safe vaccine that ends the pandemic.” Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Trump said there would be “no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgivings, no Christmas, no Easters, no Fourth of Julys.”
Detractors seized on this argument as Trump hyperbole. But as coronavirus cases surge in many parts of the Western world, governments have responded with restrictions on public and even private gatherings to promote social distancing. Public schools remain closed in some parts of the country.
“I’m not going to shut down the country,” Biden tweeted. “I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.”
The former vice president has said he is on the side of science and that of the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, whose relationship with Trump has grown strained. Biden has touted a national mask mandate and pledged to continue working toward a vaccine.
“Just last night. Donald Trump said he’s going to fire Dr. Fauci,” Biden said in Pennsylvania. “Well, I got a better idea: let’s fire Trump!”
Vice President Mike Pence quipped at his debate with Harris that much of the Biden coronavirus plan appeared to be plagiarized from the federal response already underway.
While Trump supported shutting down large swathes of the economy in the spring, he also pushed for gradual economic reopening. He criticized some Democratic governors, especially Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, for what he characterized as excessive lockdowns. He has largely tried to turn the page on the pandemic in the general election campaign.
Polls nevertheless show more voters trust Biden to handle the pandemic than Trump. The outbreak interrupted the economic boom that was the president’s best case for reelection and undermined public confidence in his leadership.
Still, Trump remains competitive in the battleground states that will decide the Electoral College majority in the final hours of the campaign. On coronavirus, he has decided that the best defense is a good offense.
Many Republicans are optimistic their core voters will respond well to Trump’s push to keep the country open, though some are skeptical he has found the right tone.
“Beating up Biden’s state of mind and his pooh-poohing of the coronavirus is going to cost him his once most loyal voters,” said a GOP operative in Washington, D.C.
