Can the COVID-19 outbreak be a game-changer for the US elections?

Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The COVID-19 outbreak is unquestionably an apolitical health issue, but it's regrettably become politicized in the hyper-partisan domestic environment leading up to the U.S. November elections. The Democrats first portrayed Trump as unnecessarily overreacting when he decided to temporarily deny entry to the country for foreigners who had traveled to China within the past 14 days prior to arriving in America, though after the outbreak began to spread across the world, they've since accused him of not doing enough to prepare for it at home.

For his part, Trump provocatively described the Democrats' politicization of this possible pandemic as a "hoax," which was misreported by his media foes as him supposedly calling the entire viral outbreak itself a "hoax" despite that not being the case. According to the president, the Democrats are trying to scare Americans away from voting for him after the back-to-back Russia and Ukraine scandals failed to remove him from office. Republican surrogates also suspect that the recent stock market sell-off was a calculated attack to capsize the president's historically strongest-ever economy for that same purpose, though it's since begun to rebound.

Taking a look at the bigger picture, it appears as though the COVID-19 outbreak will remain an influential factor in the eight months leading up to the U.S. November elections. The Democrats have an agenda in excessively fearmongering about the disease in order to discredit Trump's containment efforts, the same as the Republicans have an agenda in exposing their opponents so as to discredit them as well. Furthermore, it should be said that the American stock market is disproportionately impacted by speculation much more than many others, which explains why it dropped so suddenly over the past week prior to its recent rebound.

This observation is relevant to keep in mind because it suggests that the virus' possible spread throughout the American mainland could mean more stock market shocks in the coming future as a result of pure speculation and panic selling despite there being no objectively existing structural problems to justify them like during the 2008 financial crisis. Incumbent presidents up for re-election are usually judged by the electorate based on how well the economy did under their tenure more so than anything else, so the scenario of sudden economic shocks or a seemingly never-ending roller coaster of uncertainty might harm Trump's re-election prospects.

It's unclear at this moment who the Democrats' eventual nominee will be, but there's a credible chance that it might very well turn out to be Bernie Sanders, who's a self-professed socialist. Should that be the case, then it might be extremely difficult for him to unseat Trump in the event that the economy remains strong and unemployment stays low, but the odds could dramatically change if his party's politicization of the COVID-19 outbreak leads to highly visible consequences for what American voters fondly describe as "Main Street," the places where 'average Americans' live.

This could take the form of Americans clearing out their neighborhood stores in panic as they learn about more COVID-19 deaths in their area and fear that their cities might soon be ordered under quarantine, with the images of empty shelves and possible Black Friday-like fights breaking out between frenzied shoppers being spread all across the country by Trump's Democrat-aligned media foes to produce even more panic elsewhere. If enough people lose their jobs because they literally can't do them from home, especially if this happens in the Midwestern "swing states," then the prevailing national mood might quickly turn against Trump.

The Democrats might then have a better chance than ever before to reclaim the presidency, particularly if voters en masse perceive (key word) that the situation is becoming increasingly desperate and thus become more amenable to the comparatively more radical solutions that Sanders is suggesting. With this in mind, the COVID-19 outbreak might indeed turn out to be a game-changer for the U.S. November election. Even if Trump succeeds in keeping the physical situation under control, he might fail in this respect when it comes to controlling the narrative, which could prove disastrous for his re-election campaign.