The Trump campaign announced it would postpone all in-person events with the president or first family after President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday night.
Officials are scrambling to work out how they can get the president’s message to voters during the final month before Election Day and say they will switch to virtual events where possible.
The president was due to meet supporters at his Washington hotel on Friday before flying to Orlando for an airport rally. More events were scheduled for Saturday in Wisconsin and Philadelphia on Sunday.
Campaign manager Bill Stepien said: “All previously announced campaign events involving the president’s participation are in the process of being moved to virtual events or are being temporarily postponed. In addition, previously announced events involving members of the first family are also being temporarily postponed.
“All other campaign events will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and we will make any relevant announcements in the days ahead. Vice President Mike Pence, who has tested negative for COVID-19, plans on resuming his scheduled campaign events.”
Sources familiar with campaign thinking said they expected other members of the first family to take up some of the slack. Donald Trump Jr., for example, is hugely popular among his father’s base and had been due in Florida on Saturday with UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal as part of a “Fighters against Socialism” bus tour.
The diagnosis deprives the Trump campaign of its trademark rallies, which the president has turned into an art form. Aides have frequently contrasted his energetic style with that of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who avoided appearing in public for weeks at a time during the summer.
Trump’s illness will also make it harder for him and supporters to turn the national debate away from the coronavirus and on to issues such as law and order, which they believe can help win over voters, according to Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University.
“Even Trump’s strongest supporters may start to question the soundness of the advice about COVID-19 that has come from the White House, a shift that would potentially cast doubts about the president’s leadership and his views more broadly,” he said.
