The coronavirus has transformed President Trump’s reelection bid into an uncertain economic recovery mission, but Republican strategists believe it is a political challenge he can overcome if people have confidence in his plan to lead the United States out of a deep, pandemic-induced recession.
Trump was running as the steward of a sterling economy until the coronavirus outbreak closed most businesses nationwide and forced 17 million people, and counting, onto the unemployment rolls. But voters are unlikely to blame the president for the sudden downturn and might even reelect him if hard times persist into the fall, Republican operatives say.
“If the economy is recovering at a solid rate, and people have gone back to work, then the president can point to how he helped lead the country out of its worst economic recession since the Great Depression,” said Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster.
“While Biden and the Democrats will criticize the president for his initial handling of the coronavirus, his leadership in getting the country’s economy back on its feet may well play a greater role in his reelection,” Newhouse added, referring to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
As the rate of coronavirus infections climbed in the U.S., and the death toll mounted, Republicans initially predicted that Trump would win or lose in November based on his management of the pandemic in March, April, and May. Mitigating the spread and saving lives would deliver a second term. As of Monday, nearly 577,000 people in the country had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, with more than 23,000 reported dead.
But as the economic fallout accelerated and the economy was devastated, Republican strategists have adjusted their outlook. Now, in addition to grading Trump on his handling of the pandemic, GOP campaign gurus are convinced that voters will judge the president on his blueprint for reviving the economy and whether it is filling up their pocketbooks.
“There’s an understanding that certain things had to happen to resolve the virus situation, so there’s an expectation that the economy was going to take a hit,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises GOP leadership in Congress. “What occurs after that, both in terms of resolving the virus situation and resolving the economy — that’s how voters are going to assess him.”
The old axiom in American politics is that economic concerns reign supreme. “It’s the economy, stupid,” is how Democratic strategist James Carville famously described this rule of thumb when he advised President Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton ousted President George H.W. Bush after one term partly because of voter dissatisfaction stemming from an economic recession, even though it actually ended about six months before the 1992 election.
The downturn of the early 1990s was minor compared to what the country is facing this year. And, there is relatively little time before Election Day for a recovery to commence, particularly amid uncertainty about when the economy can be freed from a social-distancing lockdown. That could bode ill for Trump, and some Republican insiders are worried. “My gut tells me we’re in a bad place,” a GOP media consultant said.
But there also is a recent example of voters giving an incumbent presiding over a struggling economy the benefit of the doubt that might hearten the Trump campaign.
In 2012, the U.S. was still shouldering the burden of the Great Recession that began under President George W. Bush, with high unemployment, slow economic growth, and concern over the future. The conditions seemed ripe for victory for Republican nominee Mitt Romney, a career corporate turnaround specialist and former Massachusetts governor who is now a senator from Utah.
However, voters did not blame Obama for the lingering economic conditions. Instead, they concluded Obama was dealt a bad hand and deserved more time to turn things around. Because Trump was presiding over historically low unemployment and high economic growth until the coronavirus crashed the economy, he has an opportunity to win the same reprieve his predecessor did eight years ago.
“Every election is in part a referendum on the president — not on what he’s done but on what he might do,” a Republican consultant said. “That’s what Obama got right.”
