My prediction is the Coronavirus will greatly favor Trump in the general election. Here is why:
* Everyone will have to pare back social gatherings, such as dinner fundraisers, and political rallies. This will make it more difficult for the Democrat nominee to both fundraise and get the base energized. Trump already has a huge fundraising advantage. Also, Trump can call a press conference anytime he wishes and pretty much every major news network will broadcast it live because Trump is the President. The democratic nominee is free to call a press conference as he chooses, but it will not command the same level of attention.
* Trump will have the opportunity to show leadership in his handling a possible outbreak (if one occurs), and to act presidential while dealing with it. This is not unlike what Obama did after Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast when Obama was pretending to act presidential.
*Democrats will almost certainly attack any success that Trump has, which will turn off swing voters.
i feel like it could go either way in a big way regarding coronavirus. if things calm down with the virus, the global outbreaks taper off and the US avoids any outbreaks in major cities the market will go back to growing, the dems will all be wrong again and trump will end up in a better position politically than if there never was a virus.
but i can think up a bunch of possible scenarios that put trump in a very tough spot.
one of the worse case scenarios: imagine an outbreak in new york city as the election is approaching. theyd have to lock down the financial capital of the world during what would likely already be a recession. i dont think the city could function even a little without public transportation. maybe shut down bridges and tunnels. what happens to wall street? do they shut down the markets?
does trump put all his energy into doing only whats best for the entire country, even if it means short term economic pain which would could cost him votes. or does he continue to focus on casting blame on others, dividing the country and raising the stakes of the election as high as possible - causing as much anger and anxiety as possible. i dunno which would work out better for him honestly. also if theres enough outbreaks come late october, he could justify cancelling the election. highly doubtful. but think about if the election was like 2 months from now it would be a real possibility.
As mentioned above, it is more probable that weakness in the economy would be chalked up to the coronavirus and would not be attributed to Trump, while his past successes with the economy would be attributed to him.
The exchanges have business continuity plans that would allow them to continue operating if they had to shut down operations in the east coast. The same is true for the various banks that trade on the exchanges. Most trading is done electronically anyway. I would be fairly surprised if public transport was shut down in the US due to the coronavirus, that really isn’t something that democracies usually do.
I would also find it unlikely that trump would postpone the election, doing so would almost guarantee that he doesn’t get re-elected. I would think it would be much more likely that any of the democrats running for President would cancel the subsequent elections indefinitely after they get elected, than for trump to postpone the election in a legitimate emergency. This would probably happen after they take away everyone’s guns.
