With just 205 days until the November election, 2020 is in full swing – even in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Every Sunday, I outline the top storylines you need to know to understand the upcoming week on the campaign trail. And they’re ranked, so the No. 1 story is the most important of the coming week.
5. Monitor the market: If there is any single measure that President Donald Trump views as a leading indicator of his chances of winning a second term this fall, it’s the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
From his tweets to his public pronouncements, Trump reveals that he is keenly aware of every soar (and dip) of the stock market.
“We’ve done well, and I guess the market thinks we’ve done well, because we hit the biggest stock market increase without one day — we’re talking four days instead of five — that we’ve had in 50 years,” Trump said Friday in the coronavirus task force daily press briefing. “Fifty years. Think of that. More than 50 years, actually.”
(Over the previous five days, the market is up 12.67% – closing Thursday at 23,434.)
There’s no question that the state of the market has and will influence the decisions Trump makes about coronavirus and the ongoing debate over how long to keep the current social distancing measures in place.
Another extended dip – the likes of which we saw in mid- and late-March – would likely bring Trump close to pushing the “panic” button and re-opening the economy in hopes of avoiding a massive recession.
Remember, too, that the strength of the economy has long been Trump’s, uh, trump card as it relates to his chances in November. If the economic struggles brought on by the coronavirus linger into the fall, Trump’s odds of getting re-elected look longer.
4. Joe and Bernie: Bernie Sanders ended his 2020 presidential bid last week but the work of this week – and weeks to come – will be for Joe Biden and his campaign to ensure that the Vermont senator and his ardent supporters feel like they have a home under the former vice president’s tent.
Sanders’ decision to remain on the ballot and, he hopes, continue to accrue delegates throughout the remainder of the primary process, in hopes of strengthening his bargaining hand going into the party’s national convention can’t thrill the Biden team.
Nor can Sanders’ continued insistence than he won big parts of the primary.
“I think that what went right is that for all intents and purposes, Judy, I think we have won the ideological battle,” Sanders told PBS’ Judy Woodruff on Friday, adding: “Furthermore, we have won the generational struggle.”
A new CNN poll also highlighted the problem for Biden. Just more than half of Democrats (56%) said they were “extremely” or “very” excited to vote this fall. By comparison, 8 in 10 Republicans said they were “extremely” or “very” excited to cast a ballot in November.
Placating Sanders and his passionate supporters may hold the key for Biden to bump those enthusiasm numbers up. But if the past few days are any indication, Sanders won’t make it easy for his former Senate colleague.
3. Look to the governors: For all the talk about President Trump’s decision about whether or not to reopen the country, the truth is that much of the mechanics of actually lifting stay-at-home orders and re-opening local businesses lie with governors as CNN’s Maeve Reston noted here.
The vast majority of those governors (42) have issued stay-at-home directives that they – and only they – would have the power to remove. Trump can say whatever he likes about the national social distancing guidelines but he can’t force a governor to lift their own orders.
And already some governors are speaking out about the possibility of Trump declaring the country open for business on May 1.
“We’re going to make the decisions that safeguard New Mexicans,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “I’ll do what’s best for New Mexico.”
Watch in particular how Republican governors like Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker and Maryland’s Larry Hogan – all of whom have been willing to buck Trump on this issue and others – say about the possibility of re-opening their states this week.
Trump can say whatever he wants. It’s the governors where the rubber will meet the road on this.
2. Congress is at a coronavirus stalemate: After a $2 trillion economic stimulus package passed the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support, there was some hope that the coronavirus crisis might actually force more working together between the parties.
Not so, at least in the latest fight to spend more money on the Paycheck Protection Program, which is aimed at helping small businesses pay employees amid the economic hardships caused by the coronavirus.
Late last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) attempted to pass $251 billion more to further fund the program. That move was blocked by Senate Democrats, who wanted more money for hospitals ($100 million) and for states ($150 million) to fight the coronavirus.
Over the weekend, McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) issued a statement taking a very hard line on Democrats’ demands.
“Republicans reject Democrats’ reckless threat to continue blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not in similar peril,” they said.
So what do Democrats do now? Blink or call Republicans’ bluff? And remember this: Any deal would have to be approved of by every member of Congress or all members would have to return to cast a recorded vote – which no one wants to do amid the coronavirus pandemic.
1. Trump’s patience wears thin: As the weeks of social distancing and staying at home have ticked by – and almost 17 million people have filed for unemployment – you can see the President increasingly chafing under the guidance from the medical community to continue these practices for weeks to come.
And with his aspirational goal of opening the country by Easter Sunday now passed, Trump’s public comments reflect his itch to get back to normal – and his increasing belief that he needs to rely on his gut to make the right call.
“It’s gonna be based on a lot of facts and a lot of instinct, also,” Trump said Saturday night of his decision on when, exactly, to begin reopening the country. “Whether we like it or not, there is a certain instinct to it.”
On Friday, Trump, asked what metrics he would use to make the decision about when and where to re-open the country, pointed to his head and said: “The metrics right here, that’s my metrics. That’s all I can do. I can listen to 35 people. At the end, I’ve got to make a decision.”
Trump’s reliance on instinct and gut to make what he has called the “biggest decision” of his presidency isn’t a big surprise. He’s long insisted that his gut knows more than the brains of experts.
“They’re making a mistake because I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me,” Trump said of the Federal Reserve in November 2018.
And as far back as “The Art of the Deal,” Trump was touting his gut. “Experience taught me a few things,” he wrote. “One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper.”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how Trump is planning to make the coronavirus decision – a decision with potential life-and-death consequences if it means that the virus again begins to spread throughout communities.
He’s going with his gut.
