In hindsight, did COVID help or hurt Trump, or even have an impact?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Right when COVID started, Trump's polling numbers started to dip, but some have argued that COVID may have helped Trump achieve some of the supercharged Republican turn out we saw that polls struggled to pick up on. In hindsight, did COVID really hurt Trump?

[Progressive Pessimist]

It definitely hurt, but not as much as it should have. In a normal political environment it should have delivered not only Trump, but his entire party, an electoral thrashing. But evidently the country's polarization negated that possibility somewhat. Trump succeeded in molding the crisis to his advantage though by politicizing it and exploiting the apathy of those Americans who bought into his rhetoric about the virus and its ramifications. He convinced his base to not care about it and be satisfied with how he handled it. Furthermore, as the pandemic went on and he continued muddying the waters about it and shirked responsibility, the average low-information American probably began caring less about it, getting used to it, or giving Trump the benefit of the doubt on it; especially if they found themselves unaffected by it in any way. That only did so much though as it still managed to become a major point of galvanization for his opponents where it proved itself to be  microcosm for everything wrong with Trump's administration, and probably kept us even more engaged and quicker to support Biden than if the President had more objectively, competently addressed the crisis. I think it did make the difference in most of the battleground states and certainly in the safe Democratic states which were more directly hit by the virus; where Biden performed even better than Clinton in.

I know it's f***ed up to say when considering the economic and human impact of this public health crisis, but we almost should consider ourselves lucky that the Trump administration was so incompetent at dealing with the crisis and that it may have made Americans care in any capacity at all, because it was definitely an important part of why we will soon be rid of him. We really dodged a thermonuclear warhead with this election turning out as it did. Hell, early in the pandemic Trump's approval ratings skyrocketed to their highest point ever as he received a rally-around-the-flag effect. That probably went to his head and made him feel invulnerable to consequence though, and when Trump gets overconfident he makes mistakes and went on to squander all of that good-will. Had he maintained it, he definitely would have been re-elected. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm torn between little or no net impact vs. it would have been a Trump PV win and net R senate gains without COVID.  Leaning toward the second.

[Catalyst138]

I think if the election had taken place in April or May shortly after the virus really hit, he would have actually lost by the major landslide the polls were predicting. But the longer the year went, it seems that (in hindsight) Trump was gaining his voters back, solidifying turnout among his base, and even getting new voters he didn’t have last time. The stimulus and other factors made people believe they were doing better now than 4 years ago. The Democratic party was smeared as radical socialism and anarchy, even though it was clear Biden and Harris didn’t support any socialism or rioting to anyone that was actually paying attention. The polls just didn’t pick any of this up for whatever reason.

I think there is a significant portion of the country (even outside of hardcore MAGA people) that believes Trump is handling the virus pretty well, or that the virus was exaggerated and lockdowns are unnecessary. This became obvious with how close the election ended up being.

[SnowLabrador]

I think it helped him. He portrayed Biden as hiding away from voters, and it almost worked.

[roxas11]

Trump is currently on track to lose the popular vote to a Challenger by the largest margin since 1932...

Not even Jimmy carter or George hw bush lost that badly and they both had strong third party  candidates in the race

So No I don't not think Covid helped Trump at all

[Dac10]

Overall it definitely hurt Trump. However, even though it might sound morbid, Trump catching COVID and not dying did end up actually helping his message with his base. With overall voter it probably hurt, but it helped him mitigate the impact and push the “it’s just a flu” narrative with his base- which polarized them and drove up turnout like you said.

[BaldEagle1991]

It hurt Trump. He lost.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

COVID was the only reason he lost.  Without it, the economy would be still riding high. The media did a
"good" job pinning all the 'rona deaths to him. 

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

COVID was the only reason he lost.  Without it, the economy would be still riding high. The media did a
"good" job pinning all the 'rona deaths to him.  

Lol, he bragged in the first debate that Biden wore his mask too often and the last week of the campaign, he said Covid was on the downtrend and it was on the uptrend

Now he is barracated in the WH not conceding, still don't believe Covid defeated him, voting irregularities, by Fake news

[Non Swing Voter]

hurt Trump for sure.  I think the results might have been fairly similar without this issue but I think his buffoonery really hurt Trump with suburban voters.

Also, I think the increased focus on early voting due to covid (unilaterally among Dems) ended up benefitting Democrats disproportionately.  Clearly Biden got his entire winning margin in states like PA, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado before election day.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

October is Indian Summer and it gets extremely hot with cool nights in October, that's why Covid was incubated in patients, patients got sick when they were exposed to cold nights

October is a Trojan Horse for flu season, the people that went out when Lakers , Dodgers and Biden won got green that night

[HisGrace]

Can't see how it could have possibly helped him. I don't think it had as big an impact as people thought. People voting based on COVID weren't going to vote for Trump anyway. Maybe it shifted a few votes and put Biden over the top in the especially close states like Georgia or AZ.

Without COVID, Donald Trump likely would have won all 50 states tbh.

Plus Greenland and the moon colony.

[SN2903]

 No COVID Trump would have beaten Obama's 332 EV and won the popular vote. I think he gets somewhere in the range of 330 to 340 EV and 51% of the vote. He was unstoppable with that economy.  The media was successfully able to brainwash a large number of suburban whites that his response was "awful" and pin it on him when the virus came from China. In the last month Trump started coming back and shifted the argument about lockdowns. I think if he was more focused with that message he def would have won Michigan and Pennsylvania. I think there was definitely voter fraud in this election but I don't think it was enough to sway it. The real manipulation in my opinion was from media and big tech which ran the most unfair, dishonest coverage of an election I have ever seen in my life and even with that Trump still got over 47% of the vote and 73 million votes. It's actually amazing with the 24/7 nonstop coverage that Trump still got so many votes. He got 4-5 million more than Obama 2008. With a little bit fairer media coverage Biden has 0% chance of winning this election.

Here is my map with no COVID

President Donald J. Trump 338 EV 51.2%
Former VP Joe Biden 200 EV 47.8%