Just as in the 2016, the swing states bring national trends into sharp focus. Democratic governors across the country have generally urged caution, particularly in major cities, citing concerns for public health from a virus that has killed more than 85,000 people in the US – more than any other country in the world.
But Republican governors have tended to err on the side of reopening faster, alarmed that more than 36m Americans have submitted unemployment claims since mid-March and retail sales dipped 16.4% last month. Southern states such as Georgia and Texas were among the first to allow shops and businesses to reopen.
“Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back,” Trump said in the White House rose garden on Friday while announcing a major US drive to create a coronavirus vaccine.
Polls show Biden beating Trump in battleground states but Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, warns that he still faces political traps.
“The fundamental problem for the Democratic party is that in order to defeat Trump, they almost have to cheerlead for a bad economy and they also have to cheerlead for new [coronavirus] hotspots in swing states. It sounds gruesome, but really that’s so far what they’re banking on to beat Trump.
“And in this case, Trump is absolutely smarter than that and what he is offering, not only his base but voters in swing states, is hope. It’d actually be reminiscent, in a much less articulate way, of Ronald Reagan. He’s basically saying, ‘I got you to the promised land economically once, I will get you back to the promised land economically again’.
