https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/26/cuomo_rising_biden_wandering_
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the nation’s health, economy, and presidential election up in the air. Until the virus struck and the nation shut down, President Trump was a strong favorite to win a second term. The betting markets put his odds at close to 60%.
Those odds are about even now, and changing by the day. They depend on how well Trump and his aides handle the health crisis, the economic reopening, and the massive dislocations workers and firms will suffer. Right now, the public approves of what Trump is doing. But today’s polls matter far less than what the public thinks after the crisis subsides.
Older models of election forecasting, developed and tested over the years, tell us it is very hard for a president to win reelection during a recession. And one is now likely this summer, economists say.
But those old election models may prove irrelevant this year. This shutdown and its economic impact are truly unprecedented, and swing voters understand that. It is clear even to media outlets that openly loathe the president — The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN, for example — that no administration could have avoided this shutdown. It was caused by devastating foreign shocks, beginning with the outbreak of the virus in a wet market in Wuhan, China. The virus was transmitted by travelers from China and then travelers from Europe who had been infected by those from China. The Chinese Communist Party is directly responsible for this crisis, not because its leaders wanted to spread an infection but because they wanted to keep it secret to preserve their domestic control.
Still, the Trump administration will be held accountable for how it handles the crisis, and rightly so. Was it swift and competent? How did it manage the economic reboot, which must begin before the contagion is gone? If there is a second wave of infections because we threw open the doors too soon, decision-makers will face the fury.