The political burden of leading the United States out of the coronavirus pandemic is falling squarely on President Trump, despite constitutional limitations that reserve significant authority over crisis management for the governors and legitimate concerns that the World Health Organization botched its response, analysts say.
Nationally, the Trump administration shares responsibility for mitigating the coronavirus outbreak with a patchwork of state and local governments that hold equal, if not more, power to act than Washington. Internationally, the White House is reliant on the cooperation of other countries and key nongovernmental organizations such as the WHO.
No matter. When voters go to the polls this November, blame or credit for the handling of the pandemic is likely to land on Trump.
“His presidency is now a referendum on beating COVID-19 and will arguably be defined by the outcome of that battle, not perceptions of his efforts to fight it,” said Bruce Haynes, a former Republican strategist who is now chairman of SVC Public Affairs, a D.C. government relations firm.
“The only thing that matters is continuing to lead us through this coronavirus crisis,” added Jason Miller, a Republican operative and former Trump adviser who remains close with the president.
Nearly 30,000 people in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus, with the pandemic sparking a recession that has left 22 million unemployed. Part healthcare, part personal safety, and part jobs and the economy, this issue comprises the trifecta of priorities that voters tend to care about most in every election.
Since early March, when the spread of the coronavirus accelerated in the U.S., Trump has alternately asserted that he has expansive wartime powers over the states and claimed most responsibility for addressing the pandemic rests with governors. In nightly news conferences, the president has lauded his role in positive developments, while simultaneously shifting responsibility for persistent problems. Additionally, Trump halted U.S. funding for the WHO, charging incompetence that undermined Washington’s battle against COVID-19.
Whether Trump is right or wrong, voters in modern times tend to put the onus for crisis management on presidents, almost all of whom go out of their way to maximize accolades for good news and minimize their exposure for the bad.
“For better or, probably, worse, Americans have come to equate the president with the government,” said Curt Nichols, an associate professor of political science at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. “This creates enormous, unfulfillable, expectations of an office that is constitutionally restrained.”
But after a brief boost in Trump’s approval ratings at the end of the month, his numbers have drifted back toward the mid-40s, where they have frequently been during the past year. Assessment of Trump’s pandemic leadership falls along partisan lines, as it does typically.
Republican voters are satisfied. They tend to agree with Trump that governors and local officials need to be held accountable, as should the WHO, which downplayed the danger posed by the coronavirus when the first outbreak occurred in China. Democrats are accusing the president of unfairly scapegoating others to cover up what they believe has been a complete mishandling of the pandemic.
In that regard, the coronavirus pandemic is something of a Rorschach test for how voters are judging Trump, much like every other issue that has arisen during his polarizing tenure.
“To his loyal supporters, Trump is the Pied Piper who spins a tune so pleasing to the base’s ears that all else is drowned out,” said Michael Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “Likewise, to critics, Trump is Clown Prince who can’t even back into the right answer.”
