Democratic Primaries

Nearly 8 months from election day and still tons of uncertainty. The number of cases will rise and the markets will continue to plunge. That's the next 2 months or so. Beyond that and I'm not confident which direction this goes. Not enough data from other countries or any similar recent virus.

I know people don't want to hear this but it's not impossible Trump ends up looking good coming out of this. All of these canceled events from the NCAA and NBA, etc. actually work in his favor if the numbers fall well shy of some of the extreme projections. Once we're in summer and this thing is seen as "contained" then the market rebounds and Trump is chirping wildly as his approval goes back up. It briefly reached 44.6% on 538 about a month ago.

In 2008 Bush had been stuck in very low sustained approval since Katrina in August 2005. There were obvious problems with declining home sales. The Fed stepped in several times with various measures. But it wasn't until mid September with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy that the market began to plunge as global panic triggered. Obama was going to win anyway but that exploded the margin. We were never going to win states like North Carolina and Indiana minus the financial crisis.

If this were mid September 2020 instead of mid March then I would share the confidence about Trump's fate. Eight months away I can't do anything of the sort. I always default to the situational landscape as vastly more significant than anything else. Variables capture attention in both directions but that incumbency only works one way, as extreme benefit of a doubt especially if the party has only been in power one term.

Trump's approval rating is all that matters. I don't care about the vice presidential nominee or turnout or Sanders supporters or anything else in comparison to where that number is on election day.