Would Trump have won the electoral college if COVID never happened (or to a far smaller extent)?

[morgankingsley]

I really could see it go either way given how close the election turned out to be. Honestly anything probably could have won him the election. Well, maybe not anything, but I think a lack of COVID, or a lack of it being a 8 month ordeal could have been enough

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Yes, and the popular vote.

[morgankingsley]

Yes, and the popular vote.

I think that the popular vote would be closer than 2016, but I don't know if it would be enough. But he definitely would have kept 2016 states plus at least Nevada and Minnesota (his two best Clinton 16 states this year)

[TheTide]

It's difficult to say. There could have been some other issue or controversy that would have done for him.

[Beezer]

I'm inclined to say yes. Having said that Trump was trailing Biden even before Covid struck. Ultimately though in light of how close MI, WI, GA, PA, AZ and NV have turned out to be, you'd have to think that Trump would have come out on top in these states w/o the pandemic.

[Clarence Boddicker]

I think the backlash against lockdown calls from Democrats hurt Biden's support among black and especially hispanic voters, so it may be a wash on the election result. If you had told me this was the result in February, I'd have believed it.

[Catalyst138]

What if COVID didn’t help Democrats as much as people thought it would? There seemed to be plenty of people that were against the lockdowns, and the stimulus certainly worked in Trump’s favor.

[Mr.Phips]

I really don’t know.  I don’t think there were many changeable voters and notice that Trump’s approval actually went up in the first months of the pandemic.  Him getting the pandemic also kept the tax story from dominating two weeks of headlines in October. 

[RINO Tom]

Yeah, I'm not really sure.  I think there is decent evidence that he lost some voters he wasn't expecting to (rural and older voters), according to the exit polls, but was it enough to flip anything?  Were those voters turned off by other things he had done in the last four years?  I think he at least maybe picks up a state or two.

[Red Wall]

Yes because single issue covid voters broke against trump and anti lockdown people were less likely to list it was a priority.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I believe most important in this counterfactual is the opportunity cost of COVID taking away Trump's messaging on the economy. One has to think that Trump going into November hammering away constantly with "best economy ever", "lowest black unemployment ever", "brought jobs back to America", "four more years of the greatest economy you've ever seen" would have moved at least some votes, at least compared to his final messaging in real life which was something like "the virus is a hoax, reopen the country."

Even with the crisis Trump had an advantage on the economy over Biden, and it's a large part of why he nearly won despite everything. If growth was still solid in 2020 then I don't see how an incumbent with a good economy loses.

[Bootes Void]

I disagree. I think turnout would be lower without Covid but Joe Biden would have narrowly win electorally. the mishandling of Covid probably hurt him but the shutdowns and the culture wars have unfortunately  help him. Most people(not all) were not directly hurt by the pandemic(white collar) but they may have appreciated extra funding from the government along the cares act and lower interest rate. Rent evictions being paused also helped