Skip to main content
Saturday, November 14, 2026Nov 14

Pandemic creates electoral uncertainty for Trump, Democrats

FILE - In this May 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump talks to the media before boarding Air Force One for a trip to Phoenix to visit a Honeywell plant that manufactures protective equipment, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. The coronavirus pandemic is complicating what has been a May reelection campaign launch for recent presidents. Trump has told reporters recently he would travel soon to Ohio, a battleground state. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - In this May 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump talks to the media before boarding Air Force One for a trip to Phoenix to visit a Honeywell plant that manufactures protective equipment, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. The coronavirus pandemic is complicating what has been a May reelection campaign launch for recent presidents. Trump has told reporters recently he would travel soon to Ohio, a battleground state. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

President Donald Trump’s reelection is facing growing headwinds less than six months before Election Day.

Coronavirus has breached the White House walls. The U.S. unemployment rate is at a 90-year high. And the death toll in the U.S. has surged past 80,000, far more than the Republican president’s projections. Meanwhile, medical experts are warning of a major second wave of infections as states begin to reopen portions of their economies with Trump’s blessing.

Democrat Joe Biden has political challenges of his own, but no incumbent president has faced anything like this in almost a century.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Has the U.S. economy hit bottom?