Campaign Strategies and Developments

The 2020 presidential campaign began the year with a familiar script: the incumbent president touting his accomplishments and the opposition arguing that "change" for the nation was necessary. In his 2020 State of the Union Address, President Trump boasted of a U.S. economy that created "7 million new jobs" with an "unemployment rate [that] is the lowest in over a half-century." Trump summarized, "our economy is the best it has ever been." He added, "Our military is completely rebuilt, with its power being unmatched anywhere in the world—and it's not even close. Our borders are secure. Our families are flourishing. Our values are renewed. Our pride is restored." (For the complete transcript, see New York Times 2020). Democrats countered that President Trump divided Americans with his caustic rhetoric, failed Americans on health care by weakening the Affordable Care Act, and that his tax policies favored the wealthy over the middle and working class.

Just a little more than a month later, however, everything changed, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the nation. The country's once booming economy suddenly reversed as unemployment reached 14.7 percent in April, with the number of unemployed people rising in just one month from 15.9 million to 23.1 million (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020a). Although the national economy rebounded considerably by October, unemployment was still near 7 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020b). In this environment, the Trump campaign's initial strategy—to remind voters of the booming economy that occurred on his watch—had to pivot.

Instead, both the Trump and Biden campaigns were forced to focus on the administration's response to the Covid-19 pandemic—from a public health perspective and from an economic perspective. President Trump's campaign sought to portray a nation as moving forward from the pandemic. To further that message, Trump began holding public campaign rallies without a face-covering as early as June, and continued to do so throughout the remainder of the campaign. The Biden campaign, by comparison, waited until after the summer to hold his first rally after the pandemic. Unlike Trump, he wore a mask at his public events, and emphasized doing so as the "patriotic" thing to do (Bradner and Mucha 2020). Biden's events were also limited to small gatherings of people. In short, the Trump campaign sought to portray a return to normalcy and to remind voters of the good economic times that preceded the pandemic, whereas the Biden campaign projected its candidate as one who took the advice of health experts seriously and as one who understood that controlling the pandemic was critical to rebuilding the economy.

While there were contrasting messages coming from the two campaigns, both candidates targeted similar battleground states, visiting Florida and Pennsylvania most often. Other popular destinations for Trump and Biden included Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina (Blanco 2020). These same states were also heavily targeted with campaign advertisements. In particular, the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were especially important. In 2016, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush did in 1988. By flipping those states back to the Democratic column in 2020, and holding the states won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Biden campaign had a path to victory. Ultimately, Biden would win all three Rust Belt states, and add to his victory total by winning Arizona and surprising some political observers with a win in Georgia, giving him 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232.

References

Blanco, Adrian. 2020. "Amid the Pandemic, Trump and Biden Traveled Most Often to Pennsylvania and Florida." The Washington Post. November 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/02/campaign-rallies-covid/

Bradner, Eric, and Sarah Mucha. 2020. "Biden Draws Contrast with Trump on Coronavirus as Pandemic Worsens in Campaign's Final Days." CNN. October 28. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/biden-trump-coronavirus/index.html

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2020a. "Unemployment Rate Rises to Record High of 14.7 Percent in April 2020." May 13. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/unemployment-rate-rises-to-record-high-14-point-7-percent-in-april-2020.htm.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2020b. "Unemployment Rate Falls to 6.9 Percent in October 2020." November 12. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/unemployment-rate-falls-to-6-point-9-percent-in-october-2020.htm

New York Times. 2020. "Full Transcript: Trump's 2020 State of the Union Address." February 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/state-of-union-transcript.html