WASHINGTON — At a campaign rally the night before Super Tuesday in early March, President Trump had plenty to brag about.
“Jobs are booming in our country, incomes are soaring, poverty has plummeted, confidence is surging,” Trump said, ticking off the key bullet points in his argument for reelection before summarily dismissing the threat that the coronavirus could pose to the United States. “We know what we’re doing,” Trump declared.
Former vice president Joe Biden was having a good night, too. Some of his top former rivals had just endorsed him and turbocharged his campaign toward a slew of primary victories that made him the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
But one month later, the country has turned upside down. The coronavirus outbreak has killed thousands of people and the attempt to slow its ravages has ground the economy to a standstill, throwing millions of Americans out of work; nearly all the stock market and employment gains of the Trump era have been erased, as if overnight.
It has also upended the battle for the White House to a degree with little precedent, confronting Trump with a life-or-death test of his governance while Biden, his likely opponent, is relegated to the sidelines.
The election is now likely to turn on Trump’s handling of the crisis, according to political strategists, which means that he has the spotlight to himself. But he could also, if he stumbles, be his own biggest opponent as he swaps raucous campaign rallies for a series of increasingly somber daily briefings in which the president, as is his pattern, often struggles to get the facts right.
“Crises are make-or-break moments for elected officials,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “How they’ve handled the crisis has overshadowed almost everything they’ve done.”
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