At what point do you think that Trump might have lost his chance at re-election?

[BaldEagle1991]

I think the early COVID-19 response and then the high unemployment rate that came afterwards might have did it for him. Plus seeing so many pleasure events (sporting events, conventions, concerts, vacations, etc) get canceled cause of COVID-19 might have had an indirect effect.

[Smash255]

His response to COVID early on put him on path to lose re-election, but the tear gassing of peaceful protestors so he could have a photo op at a church ultimately is what turned the tide.

[Sir Mohamed]

Hard to tell. Actually I always felt his 2016 election was a fluke, a combination of factors that got him lucky in the EC and that he was never approved. But I'm not saying 2017 here. So not exactly sure.

I'm not sure the pandemic made much of a difference in the end. The likely result almost matches my pre-pandemic prediction, which was 289 EVs.

[Crumpets]

The first debate and then immediately catching COVID. If he had actually taken the time to prepare for the debate and pulled off a clear win against Biden - even while still being Trump - and then capitalized on that positive media attention to do... anything, he might have gotten the game changer he needed.

[BaldEagle1991]

Hard to tell. Actually I always felt his 2016 election was a fluke, a combination of factors that got him lucky in the EC and that he was never approved. But I'm not saying 2017 here. So not exactly sure.

I'm not sure the pandemic made much of a difference in the end. The likely result almost matches my pre-pandemic prediction, which was 289 EVs.

I would’ve said it was a fluke but this years election results and how close it was, kind of made it realize it really wasn’t.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I started a thread arguing that the election was already over in late March, and I never wavered from that.  That said, this turned out to be much closer than I expected.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

At some point in the spring when it was clear he was handling coronavirus very poorly.

[Rand]

COVID-19 did not kill him, but it did kill his presidency.

[Beet]

Um, based on the final results, it seems he had a good chance until the very, very end. I think failing to get McConnell to agree to a Stimulus bill was when he finally blew it. Had he hammered out a deal, he could have had major positive headlines going into the final week that would have put him over the top in PA, GA and AZ.

[Non Swing Voter]

He lost it like a couple months in with the ridiculous airport muslim bans and other nonsense.  He looked like a mess.  He was unfit from the beginning and his poll numbers dropped accordingly and never went up.

[Cali123]

Both the Covid-19 pandemic and death of George Floyd which inspired the BLM protests and riots.

As President Trump strong point was the economy and that was damaged when majority of businesses and schools were shut down because of the pandemic. Trump wasn't the outsider he was in 2016 and both his poor response to the pandemic and his sickness to the virus no doubt hurt him.

However, while it did hurt him in the long run, I believe many white Americans supported him because of the BLM protests. While there were peaceful protests, there was also many people rioting and looting where both the governments and sometimes police didn't know much or anything to stop the chaos. As such people upset by the governments response to pandemic became angry with their response to the riots because it showed they were viewed as, well, racists deplorables that didn't care their health or the health of others. And who are "racists deplorables" going to support? Biden or Trump?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The first debate and then immediately catching COVID. If he had actually taken the time to prepare for the debate and pulled off a clear win against Biden - even while still being Trump - and then capitalized on that positive media attention to do... anything, he might have gotten the game changer he needed.

Yeah the first debate where he incredibly missed an open goal against an awful Biden seemed like it was his last chance. After that the Covid hospitalisation sucked the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Sometime around January 2017

[BaldEagle1991]

The first debate and then immediately catching COVID. If he had actually taken the time to prepare for the debate and pulled off a clear win against Biden - even while still being Trump - and then capitalized on that positive media attention to do... anything, he might have gotten the game changer he needed.

Yeah the first debate where he incredibly missed an open goal against an awful Biden seemed like it was his last chance. After that the Covid hospitalisation sucked the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign.

If the events on my original post pretty much ended his Presidency, those events were basically the stake through the coffin.

[Hammy]

I still maintain that he hasn't lost his chance until the electoral college meets and votes. I have zero faith or trust left in these people until proven otherwise.

[Skill and Chance]

Not walking out in a MAGA mask at one of the early April COVID briefings.

[bagelman]

When COVID first became a major problem. His re-election prospects were always dicey.

[brucejoel99]

When states began mailing ballots out

[Da2017]

When Covid began.

[RJ]

When Covid began.

X2

This was a winnable election and he blew it. How many politicians have taken a crisis and were skilled enough to turn it to their advantage?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

He lost his chance for legitimate re-election some time between being impeached for abusing his office to personally extort a foreign nation into a fabricating smears against his likely opponent, and when he illegally appointed a businessman with an ongoing conflict of interest to sabotage the United States Post Office as part of an attack on our electoral system.

[Orser67]

The election looks like it will be close enough that you could point to a number of factors. But I think that, looking back on the election, we'll see the absolutely terrible reception to his performance in the first debate as maybe the decisive moment, in part because it was closer to the election than some other important moments.

[SingingAnalyst]

When Trump began, at least as reported, hinting that he may not accept the results if he loses, that gave some of his some of his "softer" supporters pause.

[Roll Roons]

I think it was the comment about injecting bleach.

[7,052,770]

#VeryFinePeople was the watershed moment for the suburbans.