Daniel DePetris

Can ‘Teflon Trump’ survive his biggest challenge yet?

At the beginning of the year, the odds on president Donald Trump winning re-election this November were 60-40 in his favour. After all, the rule is that the incumbent wins when the U.S. economy is in rock solid shape. Americans react to job growth like bees react to honey: with excitement and appreciation. It was a big reason why Ronald Reagan swept the country with a 49-state win in 1984 and why Bill Clinton won a second term with a healthy margin in 1996. Precedent suggests that regardless of his long-winded (some would say, nutty) press conferences, grievance-filled Twitter account, and impeachment asterisk, Trump would have a very good chance at continuing the trend.

All of that is now out the window. The coronavirus epidemic that continues to claim the lives of thousands of Americans every week has cratered the economy, jeopardised his electoral position in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and led Republican lawmakers, pollsters, and operatives to doubt his prospects. Over 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance in four weeks. Like the many workers who have been furloughed or who have lost their jobs due to the virus, Trump is itching to reopen the country as quickly as possible. It doesn’t take a Ph.D in economics to see why; the congressional budget office projects the unemployment rate will reach close to 14 per cent in the second quarter, a number that hasn´t been registered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since records were first kept in 1948.

So if Trump was hoping to rely on good economic numbers for his campaign, those plans are now completely ruined. Which begs the question: what does Trump run on?

The Trump campaign, the GOP’s political machinery, and the Republican party at large appear to be divided into two camps.

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Written by
Daniel DePetris

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek.

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