2020 with Traditional Recession.

[WPADEM]

Despite the Coronavirus, the Covid-Recession, and Protests, President Biden only narrowly defeated President Trump. How would the election have turned out if in 2020 we had a repeat of the 2008/2009 Recession instead? Let's say recession starts in the summer of 2019, and in March 2020 we have a 2008 esque crash. The Trumpist and Establishment Republicans fight publically amongst themselves while the Democrats call for further Stimulus measures beyond Tax Cuts and Deregulation.

Biden is still the nominee. Trump blames the Recession on Congress, China, Immigrants, and the "Establishment." Unemployment is at 9% come election day.  How does the election turn out? How does polarization hold in a poor economic climate.  You choose the running mates. The Democrats have a full convention and campaign ground game. Biden runs on restoring the economy, Trump on fighting the establishment.

Possible POD: Trump gets his tax cut in his first 100 days, the sugar rush from tax law wears off, so the 2018 market correction is worse than real life. Maybe the trade war spirals out of control?


You can decide if we still have Covid.

[Politician]

Biden probably does better than in OTL, since the recession is viewed as Trump's fault and not as COVID-induced.

[One Term Floridian]

This would echo 2008 and Trump and the GOP would pay pretty dearly for it. You actually would see some gains for Dems in the House, and they would have about 52 seats in the Senate.

Biden nets NC and FL is legitimately a toss-up this time. OH and IA are fairly close but still Lean R. TX is Lean R, at or slightly more left than Beto 2018's margin.

[Del Tachi]

All of the traditional economic indicators we associate with incumbent reelections were actually great in November 2020.  The stock market was back to 2019 levels and the unemployment rate was 8-pts off its April 2020 high.  Exit polls actually showed more voters preferred Trump to Biden on the economy.

A more traditional recession (w/o covid) would have been much more damaging to Trump, since he would have been primarily perceived as contributing to it.