How would the election have gone had Covid never happened?

[Samof94]

It is obvious the Pandemic became the main issue of the election for obvious reasons.  What if the disease simply never existed?

[mileslunn]

Hard to say.  Probably would have given Trump slight edge as economy was doing well, but hubris might have defeated him as he tends to overplay his hand.  Biggest difference is regardless of outcome, would have known winner much sooner and you wouldn't have had red and blue mirages you saw on election night or at least would have disappeared within a few hours and made more sense (i.e. which counties reporting not totally weird results like you saw). 

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Trump wins

[SnowLabrador]

Trump would have won, and it wouldn't have been close. It's clear now that Biden only won (and even then barely) because of Trump's criminal negligence at best, genocide at worst.

[wnwnwn]

Nobody knows. Maybe an economic crisis could have still happened, and nobody could blame ir to a virus nor China.

[Zenobiyl]

Trump almost certainly would have won.

[One Term Floridian]

I don't think we should underestimate the better Democratic ground game that would have happened without COVID. I think states like Florida, North Carolina and Texas would have been closer without COVID lockdowns and better Democratic canvassing.

[SnowLabrador]

I don't think we should underestimate the better Democratic ground game that would have happened without COVID. I think states like Florida, North Carolina and Texas would have been closer without COVID lockdowns and better Democratic canvassing.

That's actually a fair point. In hindsight, that should have been a red flag that Trump was more competitive than polls suggested.

[oldtimer]

Hard to say.  Probably would have given Trump slight edge as economy was doing well, but hubris might have defeated him as he tends to overplay his hand.  Biggest difference is regardless of outcome, would have known winner much sooner and you wouldn't have had red and blue mirages you saw on election night or at least would have disappeared within a few hours and made more sense (i.e. which counties reporting not totally weird results like you saw). 

We do know that pollsters in 2020 predicted Biden's share correctly on average, so we can make a guess.

Biden pre-corona: 48-50%

So Trump ought to have done at least 1.5% better than his actual 2020 result.

I guess Biden 49.5 Trump 48.5 , and no change from 2016 apart from Trump winning Nevada.

[dw93]

Give or take PA.

[Redban]

The polling remained stable the whole election cycle, pre-Covid and post-Covid. The polls, of course, were wrong, as they predicted Biden would win by Obama-2008 or Clinton-1992 levels. But that polling didn't change might suggest the result would have been the same?

I think that, without Covid, the race riots would have been an even bigger issue, dominating the public.  And the Ukraine phone-call impeachment wouldn't have fallen out of public eye, as it did. So Trump would've had his vulnerabilities without Covid

One wildcard for Trump's favor is that Biden wouldn't have been able to hide away for long stretches. People would've seen him, he would've made more gaffes, and he might not have been able to keep the aura of a moderate generic (D).

I would say that, without Covid, Biden would've still won

[Vice President Christian Man]

We'd be likely to face a recession which I think would hurt Trump nearly as badly as Covid did. WI would be a coin toss but for the sake of this scenario I'll give it to Biden. NV would go to Biden by FL Bush 2000 margins leading to a court challenge where they'd side with Trump. We'd see a more popular 1/6 as his "stolen election" valor would have more credence, although like OTL it wouldn't be successful. "Stack the courts" would no longer be a fringe movement and if they campaign on that and Dobbs still happens, I think it'll hurt the Dems about as much as Dobbs hurt the GOP leading to the anticipated red wave. Biden might take the midterm results as a wake-up call but maybe not which could lead to more funding in swing states although that's not clear. Other than that things largely remain the same.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The polling remained stable the whole election cycle, pre-Covid and post-Covid. The polls, of course, were wrong, as they predicted Biden would win by Obama-2008 or Clinton-1992 levels. But that polling didn't change might suggest the result would have been the same?

I think that, without Covid, the race riots would have been an even bigger issue, dominating the public.  And the Ukraine phone-call impeachment wouldn't have fallen out of public eye, as it did. So Trump would've had his vulnerabilities without Covid

One wildcard for Trump's favor is that Biden wouldn't have been able to hide away for long stretches. People would've seen him, he would've made more gaffes, and he might not have been able to keep the aura of a moderate generic (D).

I would say that, without Covid, Biden would've still won

I don't think the racial unrest happens at all without covid.  I think people often overestimate the butterfly effect, but this seems like a classic case of it.  George Floyd may never have died at all, but, even if he did, I don't think the protests are as big in a non-covid world where people weren't already frustrated and on edge.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Assuming no pandemic, race riots, or recession?

Trump probably wins with the same map as 2016 minus Michigan and NE-02. He does better in Florida and Wisconsin, around the same in Pennsylvania, and worse in Arizona and Georgia.

[Sir Mohamed]

It pains me to say this, but at least 50/50, if not a Trump win.

If you go through Lichtman's 13 keys, that actually points to a Trump reelection. That saidm he would have lost the NPV again. Probably by more than in 2016. I mean, he came within 43k votes despite getting crushed by over 7 million in total.

[Del Tachi]

Covid helped Trump in some states.  Without it, Biden could have also more freely run a more traditionally Democrat, populist campaign.  Trump is still unpopular even without covid, so:



I think it's generally underestimated how much covid exacerbated some of the class-based trends we first saw in 2016.  An incumbent Republican Trump with a "good" economy would have done better with upper middle class, college-educated types while Biden would have been able to lean more into populist messaging if he wasn't saddled with having to satisfy the "believe science" technocrat types.

[Xing]

Trump narrowly wins, with MI and NE-02 being the only flips.

[Agonized-Statism]

A recession still would have happened in 2020. There was a sharp slowdown in manufacturing activity in 2019 due to the trade war with China (and Brexit in Europe). No COVID means less impetus for stimulus, so it would have lasted longer too. But more importantly, without COVID pulling everyone's attention inward, the Iranian-American confrontation might not have fizzled out and some neocon or another probably would have been able to goad a desperate Trump into invading around the summer (i.e. not soon enough for the anti-war movement to boost Sanders toward the nomination as it might have had war broken out in January). The ensuing oil shock would have deepened what might have otherwise been a fairly mild recession.

On the racial unrest, George Floyd is saved by the butterfly effect, but remember that there were plenty of other instances of police brutality around that time: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Christian Cooper, and Jacob Blake all made the news before and after May 25. Aside from being the most extensively filmed and unusually cruel, Floyd's murder was amplified over the others because it was the first to happen after the lockdown started and its economic effects were taking a serious toll, particularly on the poor and minorities. I think, with the country being more politically conscious heading into election season, that there still might have been some localized BLM protests in conjunction with unrest related to the recession and the probable anti-war protests. 2020 was already set to be our generations' 1968 in terms of escalating social conflicts.

In this scenario, Biden ends up doing better. Trump doesn't get the millions of super low-propensity anti-lockdown and conspiracy theorist voters he gained from COVID, while Biden wouldn't have to walk a tightrope on lockdowns or George Floyd protests. He would be well positioned with his then-esteemed foreign policy experience to campaign against the Iran War in a Nixonian sort of way that satisfies both the anti-war movement and Middle Americans who support the troops™ but just don't like the sectarian quagmire it would devolve into. With Black Lives Matter being a smaller element in the escalation of social conflicts, the focus when selecting a running mate would be more on appealing to progressives.

Biden's more impressive popular vote margin probably doesn't net too much on the electoral map, however. Ohio still sticks with Trump (recession or not, the trade war wins them over), as does Florida (critical mass of boomer retirees and reactionary Cubans and Venezuelans). The Farm Crisis generation had probably faded too much for a win in Iowa while Texas probably wasn't quite ready yet (not to mention the Texas oil industry would certainly enjoy a boost). And then, IMO, he was just never a great candidate.


President Donald Trump (R-FL) / Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)
Fmr. Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) / Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) ✓

[Stranger in a strange land]

Trump would have lost, and probably by a bigger margin. The backlash against COVID restrictions and the Summer 2020 riots probably helped him on balance. Plus a lot of people gave him credit for COVID stimulus, including checks in the mail, and it's often forgotten now but people were feeling more financially secure in late 2020 than now because with many stores and entertainment venues still closed or unpleasant to access because of masking and social distancing requirements, there were fewer things to spend money on, and more importantly, inflation hadn't really started to bite yet. Exit polls gave him pretty good marks on the economy IIRC.

Without COVID, his failed leadership, corruption, nepotism, outrageous behavior in office, and inability to legislate effectively would have been much bigger issues.