How would the election have turned out if COVID hadn't been on the scene???? nt

[LAS14]

[moonscape]

1. I've wondered this too. I think Biden still would have

won but not by as much. We were so motivated to get rid of the menace that I think our GOTV would have been just as strong.

[Cha]

2. I'm just going to Appreciate What

did happen.. Not "What IFS?".


And, what's happening right NOW is the Biden TEAM is Fighting an Attempted trump COUP.

[LAS14]

6. The more we understand about this election, the better equipped we'll be to win the next one. nt

[Shermann]

3. Hard to say, there were polls in 2019 but who can rely on those? nt

[LAS14]

4. I saw somewhere that opinion polls were more reliable than voting polls. I don't...

.. know how they can figure that out, though.

[Shermann]

9. I'm guessing he would have kept the Obama economy on cruise control and cruised to victory

But 2020 hasn't been the kind of road you can just cruise down. It's been rocky.

Trump was tested, and he was tested abusively by the pandemic. He failed that test by any objective metric you can use including his own (anything under 100,000 or 200,000 deaths is a job well done).

Failing to manage a natural disaster or national emergency effectively is a political death sentence every time. Americans are going to give their health and well-being the highest priority, and you can't simply pound on the tables and assert the economy is more important.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

5. I'm not so sure we would have won

I think a lot of people, especially older people, realized he had discounted their lives in order to try to get the economy doing well enough to win re-election. Many of them probably voted for him last time.

[nuxvomica]

7. A couple of responses to that

1) COVID wasn't exactly a Black Swan. When he was still president, Obama had warned that something would likely occur, based on what the scientists were telling him.
2) The Roseanne Roseannadanna rule: if it wasn't this thing it would've been something else. Trump's level of incompetence invites all kinds of disasters.

[liberal N proud]

8. Biden won without campaign rallies

Imagine if he could have pressed the flesh.

[Ms. Toad]

10. Competing forces - no way to tell.

Absent COVID - Biden would have had a significant ground game - driving more to the polls.
Absent COVID - fewer people would have been smacked in the face with his incompetence (and might still have voted for the illusion)

[maxsolomon]

11. Probably would have lost.

No way to know.

[Buckeyeblue]

12. I think Biden would have won by more

It would have been a much different election. But I think increased turn out for Trump was from people who don't want any additional Covid restrictions. Without Covid. much of this group stays home.

[LAS14]

13. Oooh!!! Now there's a thought!!! Thanks. nt

[Shermann]

14. It appears greatly increased turnout doesn't clearly help either party nt

[treestar]

15. Whatever else happened

would have shown his incompetence and outrageous behavior as well.

[Caliman73]

16. This is likely a scenario not worth considering.

Had this been any other "mass casualty" type scenario, the result would have been the same. Think about what President Obama had to face in his first term. Cratering economy. Trump would have absolutely messed that up and we would have been screwed. G W Bush, although he also screwed it up. A massive terror attack on New York City, the Pentagon, and a third failed attempt? Trump would have royally screwed it up.

Trump created his own problems and scandals having been handed a stable and growing economy. A pandemic hit, which experts had been saying was a highly likely possibility since the Bush administration. It wasn't an IF scenario, it was a WHEN scenario. President Obama had 3 potentially horrific scenarios in Ebola, H1N1, and Zika, which were handled well.

Trump, had he had no problems at all in his administration, may have been okay to win re-election. The problem is that there are usually not time periods when absolutely nothing happens. Trump never had any capability to handle anything, so something potentially horrible would have become massively horrible under his administration.

Not worth considering.

[Ferrets are Cool]

17. I don't think it had any effect at all

JMO, yours may differ.

[sarcasmo]

18. Trump would have won, all he had to do was handle Covid like a sane person.

[subterranean]

19. If Trump had managed it competently, he probably would have won.

The approval ratings of some countries' leaders actually went up because of the way they responded to the COVID problem. That could have happened with Trump too if had handled it better and been honest and tried to unite the country instead of dividing it. Or even if he'd just stepped back and let Mike Pence handle the daily press events. But he couldn't do any of that because he is who he is.

[kairos12]

20. Dems lose for sure.

[gratuitous]

21. I probably would have won in a walk-over

Someday. Dictator for life by unanimous acclaim.

[judeling]

22. Biden wins and the Senate switches to at least 52 Democrats

The dynamics of the race pre-covid were pretty set. What Trump attempted to do with Biden didn't work and actually in the end brought up Biden's favorables. So Biden was going in as the favorite and nothing Trump could do would change that. The pandemic narrowed the issue playing field dramatically. Trump was able to set up a binary choice the disease or the economy and early on shift the balme to the cities. To a large extent that stopped the slow bleed he was experiencing in his core demographics. This was especially true in Rural America where the trade war, ethanol and other failures was eating into his support. It wouldn't win but it would allow the Suburban shift to be magnified.
It also masked all of the continuing scandals. USPS and the revelations of his finances to name just two. His and the GOP's assaults on Medicare and Social Security were already underway and so the Senior shift was also happening. We were in a manufacturing recession and what bump the tax cut gave was almost totally rung out of the system and the Markets were already starting to flatten and perhaps decline as serious talk of a broader recession was in the air after the FED had already been forced to signal an easing of policy.
So going in Biden would have been able to highlight many more issues that would have hurt Trump. Even the post George Floyd outburst of protest would have been even more effective over a longer period.

One last thing on George Floyd, this is pure speculation on my part, but based on direct observation. In Minneapolis Covid really hurt in the first couple of days as the community elders were frozen at home. The young leaders were dynamic, effective, powerful, and spread way to thin. Where the stood the violence was contained and minimized. But they just didn't have the network and contacts and experienced bodies to spread their influence far enough. We just didn't get the moms and grandmas out early enough. Minneapolis set a tone for all that came after, I am convinced that had that happened the images would have been much less violent and much more mass action.