He’s a politician running for office who just took himself off the campaign trail for half the time he has left to campaign.
Furthermore, something like 2/3rds of the electorate already don’t trust Trump on his coronavirus response. The man was just on live television mocking Biden for wearing a mask. And now despite all his claims to the contrary, Trump has just demonstrated that he can’t even keep himself and his family safe, let alone the country.
There is no way this isn’t devastating to the GOP “Everything is fine” narrative.
I just don’t see how this is a net positive for the Trump campaign.
Neither do I, but I'll offer the anxiety produced scenario that I really, really, hope doesn't play out.
Consider your average person planning on voting for Trump.
His true believer supporters won't be affected just because he comes down with some flu-like symptoms. Short of actually dying, they'll come up with some excuse why he was right all a long.
There's another group of people, a fairly large group, actually, that hates Trump. However, they feel that any Republican is better than any Democrat. Nothing about this will change their vote.
So, the only people who could be influenced are the undecideds. How many of those are there? I would think these developments would shift some into the Biden camp, but if they were undecided, they probably already thought Trump was doing a lousy job with Covid, or that whatever he was doing didn't really matter and that the disease was going to "run it's course" anyway.
But there's another electoral influence. It could remind people just how dangerous the virus is. If even the President can't be protected, it must be very dangerous to go out and interact with people, like, for instance, in a line at a polling place. And since Democratic voters are more likely to be afraid of the virus than Republican voters, turnout could be further depressed by seeing the President infected.
That's kind of a nightmare scenario, but not unthinkable.
In general what worries me about this election is that lots of people will vote by mail for the first time, which will result in lots of spoiled ballots, because it's easier to fill out a mail in ballot improperly and get the ballot rejected. Other people will plan on voting by mail, but not get around to doing it in time, and will decide to sit out the election. Other people will plan on voting in person, but at the last minute decide that it isn't safe. Since Democrats fear the virus more than Republicans, all of these things help Trump, and him getting sick makes all of them worse.
