How will Democrats handle Trump’s COVID hospitalization? Ask them in an hour.
In the blurry morning hours after President Donald Trump said he tested positive for coronavirus, Joe Biden’s top campaign aides weren’t quite sure what to do.
Should their candidate react? Should his surrogates do it for him? Should Biden travel to Michigan? Should the campaign pull the attack ads?
As Biden’s inner circle — longtime aide Mike Donilon, Washington operative Anita Dunn, campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield and the candidate’s wife, Jill Biden — debated, campaign staffers were left in the dark, refreshing their email and Twitter accounts like everyone else in America, eager for updates on the most chaotic day of the 2020 presidential race yet.
“What this feels like is a moving target,” said one Biden aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss what’s happening inside the campaign. “Every eight hours the sands could shift and you’re going to make different decisions.”
And that’s now the new norm.
For the final 31 days of the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden’s campaign will be making daily decisions on plans that in any other year would have been set for execution weeks earlier. Any decision made could change again in an instant. And for campaign operatives, the expectation is regular upheaval.
Walking into the first weekend of October, with Trump on his way to Walter Reed Medical Center on Marine One, the Biden campaign paused its advertising that attacked an ailing opponent. As for now, it intends to continue in-person canvassing in a handful of states.
But aides cautioned that the amount of close contact with supporters could change, depending on the trajectory of the coronavirus and the health of the sitting president.
“Yes, probably things get reeled in. But I can’t tell you sitting here at 7 o’clock eastern what the next step is,” said the Biden aide. “If the president gets put on a ventilator, we may pull ads altogether. The president’s medical situation will dictate what we’re doing.”
The day reminded many campaign pros of an October Friday four years ago, when the Access Hollywood tapes leaked to display the president making lewd statements about women. At the time, Hillary Clinton’s campaign had no idea the video was about to be released and instead was focused on a public declaration from U.S. intelligence that day that Russia was intervening in the election to assist then-candidate Trump.
When the video, in which Trump makes a vulgar remark about grabbing women’s genitals, became public, staffers crowded around TV screens to watch.
“The entire campaign and all the different bullpens, you could just see everyone watching cable news with their mouths agape, because they were playing the video over and over and over again,” said Zac Petkanas, former director of rapid response for Clinton’s campaign, describing its Brooklyn headquarters. “People were just gobsmacked.”
Campaign officials, he said, are usually able to get a handle on even fast-moving stories after a few days. But when history-making, playbook-defying events strike, even season political operatives go wobbly.
Of all the decisions made by the Biden campaign in the aftermath of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, the decision to suspend its negative advertisements — which included ads targeting Hispanic and African-American voters — is likely the most controversial. Most campaigns, especially presidential ones, rely heavily on ads criticizing their opponents in the election’s final weeks.
And those concerns could mushroom in the coming days if the Trump campaign, as it indicated Friday, does not pause its own negative ads.
Still, even many Democratic strategists said it was likely the right move for a campaign that touts Biden’s ability to be an elder statesman and rise above partisanship to do what’s right for the country. Many of them also believe that Biden will benefit more from positive ads anyway, as opposed to trying to tear down a candidate whose reputation is already cemented in the minds of many voters.
“Negative spots aren’t moving Trump’s numbers down,” said one Democratic strategist. “Trump is moving his numbers down.”
Republicans were largely unmoved as Trump’s team entered quarantine. The president who recorded a video expressing his thanks to well-wishers and was seen walking out of the White House to the helicopter, would power through the malady and emerge potentially stronger politically in the aftermath, they argued.
“He’s a very robust guy who works an incredible number of hours a day his entire life. There’s no question his energy is high. He’s obviously a little overweight, but he’ll get excellent care,” said Rob Steele, a Republican National Committee member from Michigan who is also a physician. “Having symptoms for a few days wouldn’t be out of the ordinary … He’s going to be doing as much as he can when he’s in the hospital and getting back out there as soon as he can.”
Said Tyler Bowyer, a Republican National Committee member from Arizona: “The campaign has built an incredible foundation and they will adapt quickly. If anything, this will make the president more determined in the final weeks of the election.”
Local Democrats in battleground states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire said they planned to forge ahead with their plans for phone banking and organizing this weekend, having received no new guidance from Biden headquarters.
Chris Walton, the chairman of the Milwaukee County Democrats, said he first first learned of the news from an early-morning email from the Biden campaign in Wisconsin. Aside from a follow-up email later in the day confirming that Biden and Harris had both tested negative for coronavirus, Walton said as of Friday evening he hadn’t received any further guidance from the campaign on how to proceed — but was bracing for another chaotic day Saturday.
“Oct. 2 has been a very long year,” Walton said. “We’ll see what next year holds tomorrow.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 9:36 PM with the headline "How will Democrats handle Trump’s COVID hospitalization? Ask them in an hour.."
