Could coronavirus and economic slump cost Trump re-election?

[Gravitycollapse]

I know that the perception of a bad economy can have a dramatic impact on presidential approval ratings. If this downturn continues, it can’t be good for the administration already historically unpopular.

Is it possible that this is a perfect storm against Trump?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Or will people be stupid enough to fall for the inevitable '"See? We told ya'll about them fur'ners

coming here and infecting us...." spin?

[treestar]

2. Will be forgotten

All seems to hinge on October (remember Comey)

[Gravitycollapse]

3. I have a feeling it will still be around come the fall.

It might actually be dramatically worse than it is now.

[tman]

4. Downturn? In the event a recession should occur...

Do you honestly believe Trump's Department of Labor will release any job reports that would that would indicate we are in an economic recession?

[edhopper]

5. only if it's impact is more long term

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. No. Coronavirus and economic slump are due to Obama's failed policies.

Disastrous. Sad.

I'm waiting for that spin from the stable genius.

[kurtcagle]

7. I think it will

Amazon just announced a travel ban on its entire workforce of 800,000, effective immediately. I expect others to follow suit shortly. Even if this is a relatively short-lived event, the impact that it's already had on the stock market wiped out nearly $4 trillion in wealth, and I don't think we've seen the bottom of the slide. That's going to hit a lot of companies hard enough that layoffs are pretty much inevitable at this point. If Powell had not announced the likelihood of another rate cut at the eleventh hour, the DJIA would have been down another 1000 points today, instead of being down "only" 350.

There's another factor that I think will work solidly against Trump at this point, albeit subtly. Republicans have a much higher propensity to be germophobic than Democrats - there's a close correlation between conservative thinking and a higher sensitivity to "disgusting" things. Most red states have been working to limit their states to voting only on one day, or at best, a couple of days prior, and in person. How do you think older and more germophobic people are going to react to standing in long lines with potentially sick people for several hours? I am hoping by November that the worst of this is over, but it WILL drive down turnout dramatically in a demographic that is likely naturally predisposed to voting for Trump. The alternatives - voting by mail - may actually get adopted before the GE as an emergency action, but VBM has also traditionally benefited Democrats.

It's also something that will be very hard for this same demographic to ignore. Watching older friends die due to the virus while the talking heads are all saying that everything is fine might be the final cognitive dissonance that will break these people.