How COVID19 will impact the 2020 Elections

One major thing being affected by COVID 19 is the United States 2020 election. With people staying at home during this self-quarantine and “social distancing” time, rallies which usually consist of large masses of people will not occur. COVID 19 has somewhat taken away attention from the elections. In my experience, most of my young friends are much more concerned with the health risks of COVID than the effect it will have on the 2020 election. I did find however over an older and more mature audience looked at COVID with a different set of minds. Some swing states such as Florida are seeing the mess that was the spring breakers mobbing the beaches. People are analyzing how poorly the situation was handled in the US and it is reshaping their political views in some respect. I found an interesting quote from an article that explored this topic “The nation’s largest swing state — which Trump carried narrowly in 2016 — has become Democrats’ Exhibit A in their case for the GOP’s mishandling of the pandemic. Spring breakers were allowed to crowd the state’s beaches. The virus spread to the state’s nursing homes and to The Villages, a largely Republican retirement community. And as hundreds of thousands of Floridians applied for unemployment benefits, they were stymied by a system Republicans privately acknowledge was designed by the previous Republican administration to make it harder to get benefits — a measure to lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims.” It seems that people who are now on the otherwise of the economic lines are realizing that republican economics will now no longer benefit them as it once did. In my opinion, I have seen more people shift away from Trump due to his failure to handle the COVID situation. It’s now that people are really feeling the pressures of the Virus that they realize our President was not fit or equipped to handle this. I also found that “A senior Biden campaign official said the campaign sees a widening path into states with high numbers of working-class voters and people of color, such as Arizona and Georgia, noting unemployment claims that have hit Georgia particularly hard. Three-quarters of black voters in competitive states say their lives have been affected by the coronavirus, and 46 percent have lost a job or work hours because of it, according to a survey of 800 registered black voters in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin released last week by the progressive-leaning advocacy group BlackPAC”. In this case, it looks like the communities hit hardest are those of color. Because these communities are placed in red states, Democrats are looking to capitalize and gain as much support in these areas as possible. On top of that. “Jill Alper, a Michigan-based Democratic strategist and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, pointed to an ABC News/Washington Post poll that found Trump’s overall approval rating dropping among people whose lives have been most disrupted by the crisis. “His approval is lower in states with higher-per capita infection rates, and one of those states is Michigan,” Alper said. “In a solid-Democratic or solid-Republican state, that likely wouldn’t make a big difference. But in a battleground or near-battleground state, it could singlehandedly change the outcome.” “People here need look no further than their Facebook feed to see stories of friends and family suffering joblessness, closing a business, or worse yet, noting loved ones who are sick or who’ve lost their lives,” she said. “I see it, every day. That matters a great deal in a state like Michigan that could be won or lost on the margins.” COVID 19 has given some people the chance to finally see how our country reacts in times of crisis. Another aspect of the 2020 elections that will be impacted are the polls themselves. I found an important topic that I wanted to discuss further, “Who does and doesn’t get to vote in November could rest on how states, political parties, and the federal government respond to the coronavirus threat to the U.S. elections.” It’s important to see just how people are going to get their votes in. There is discussion about how the United States is going to have an effective and fair system that will allow everyone to participate. Obviously, everyone has been affected in a different way than one another but it is important and constitutional that there is a way to have a fair election in 2020.

It’s impossible to see just how things will play out in November, I know that it is projected that over 50 percent of the population will contract Corona Virus and millions will die. Many are not sure how this situation will be dealt with and whether or not we can get back to living a normal life again. Things will get worse before they get better yet it will be interesting to see when and how bad things really get and whether or not we can handle the situation. In times like these, we see what values people truly have and what our priorities are. Here is something I found and wanted to share “If ever we needed reminding that we live in an interconnected world, the novel coronavirus has brought that home. No country can tackle this alone, and no part of our societies can be disregarded if we are to effectively rise to this global challenge. COVID-19 is a test not only of our health-care systems and mechanisms for responding to infectious diseases but also of our ability to work together as a community of nations in the face of a common challenge. It is a test of the extent to which the benefits of decades of social and economic progress have reached those living on the margins of our societies, farthest from the levers of power. The coming weeks and months will challenge national crisis planning and civil protection systems – and will certainly expose shortcomings in sanitation, housing, and other factors that shape health outcomes.” I am curious to see just how we deal with the situation and how the elections compare with this pandemic.