The coronavirus is changing everything and that includes the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Much of the U.S. and its president woke up to the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic in the weeks after Super Tuesday, just as former Vice President Joe Biden was consolidating his victory in the Democratic Presidential Primary. He and Senator Bernie Sanders held the first and last 2-candidate debate on March 15th before cameras but without a live audience and at a safe distance from each other. They had already stopped holding live campaign events five days earlier.

The coronavirus has certainly stolen the Democratic Primary’s and Biden’s rightful spotlight at this point in the 2020 election. U.S. presidential elections are the Super Bowl of elections, a spectacle that the whole world watches. Iowa, Super Tuesday, the capturing of the nomination, the conventions, the debates, rallies and visits to quaint diners, pressing the flesh—it’s a battle between two candidates with every moment captured by the constant presence of cameras. It’s the ultimate reality-TV but with much higher stakes.

Already, Democrats in Congress are pushing for funding for voting by mail so that Americans won’t have to physically go to the polls on November 3 and the Democratic National Committee is urging states with remaining primaries to make voting by mail available to everyone. Because voting laws are different in each state, there are some that do all voting via mail and others that only allow it for special circumstances. Voting is of course critical, not only for its role in the Democratic process but also because turnout can have a significant impact on results.

Even if the Democratic primary just barely concluded this week with Sanders’ announcement this he is suspending his campaign, the general campaign is already well-underway. It seemed that Trump was going to do the straightforward and obvious thing of campaigning on the strong economy. Now that that is shot to hell, he’s moved on to the only campaign strategy that is better than having a good economy: being a war president. 

This is a smart move because the U.S. has a long history of re-electing incumbent presidents during wars: George W. Bush in 2004 (Iraq and Afghanistan), Richard Nixon in 1972 (Vietnam), Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 (Vietnam), Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944 (World War II), Woodrow Wilson as they approached World War I in 1916, Abraham Lincoln, in 1864 (Civil War) and James Madison in 1812 (the War of 1812). 

Why does it help to be leading a war at the time of the election? Anyone who has studied political science has learned about the “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Outside threats, typically wars, tend to unite countries behind their presidents and we can see this in the polling. George W. Bush has the most dramatic example of this, after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 he registered the highest approval rating in the history of Gallup polling, a whopping 90%. This means that not just Republicans supported him, but a very large portion of Democrats as well. Most presidents begin their terms above 50%, again indicating that voters from both parties are wishing them well from the start.

This is important context for a recent El País headline that declared: “Trump's popularity peaks in the middle of the coronavirus crisis.” President Trump’s Gallup approval rating indeed reached its all-time high of 49% for a second time in his presidency, the first was during the impeachment hearings. Considering the threat both the U.S. and the world is currently facing, Trump should really have much higher approval ratings. As they are, they reflect a highly polarized electorate with Republicans lining up behind their man and Democrats being outraged by him.

Yet Trump isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket and won’t just settle for being a war president. In fact, these polls give us insight into his most characteristic weapon: driving a wedge between Americans, notably between urban and rural Americans. Journalist Ron Brownstien of the Atlantic and CNN pointed out on a podcast with Warren Olney that even in the face of this threat, information is traveling through a partisan political filter. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that in addition to Trump’s divided approval numbers, other polling on his handling of the pandemic also shows a partisan divide. 

In keeping with this, Trump is using the same divisive language that he used during his campaign, notably by referring to the Coronavirus as “the Chinese virus”, subtly reminding Americans that this is a foreign threat linked to immigrants and immigration. Further, Trump and Republicans have been casting doubt on any and all expert opinions as just smug elites looking down on normal people and trying to tell them what to do.

This is evidenced, as Brownstein points out, in the state by state response so far and how each one has perceived the severity of the pandemic. Of the 20 states that have done the most to reduce travel, 15 voted for Clinton and of the 25 that have done the least, 23 voted for Trump. He sees this translating into yet another red vs, blue state dynamic for Trump to exploit where the blue, more urban areas where infections have been the most rampant are forcing lockdowns on the good, hard working people of the red, more rural places. 

While all presidents spin their messages in order to put themselves in a more positive light, the daily White House press conferences on the Coronavirus pandemic have given Trump an even bigger megaphone than he has as president but one he is using to spread disinformation. This includes promoting the use of the anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a preventative measure against the Coronavirus although this is scientifically unproven and people with illnesses such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis depend on the drug. When Trump finally made the recommendation that everyone wear face masks, he himself refused to put one on. MSNBC and CNN have started editing rather than broadcasting these press briefings in their entirety. 

The well-entrenched partisan media divide consists of Fox News filtering out White House messages, that get repeated on an endless loop in the right-wing social media while the rest of the media struggles to deal with Trump’s disinformation in different ways and with a multitude of disparate messages. This is a big liability for the Democrats going into 2020, explained David Plouffe, former Obama campaign director, on Kara Swisher’s technology podcast RecodeDecode. According to Plouffe, about 10-12% of voters are in play for November and Democrats need to be executing a proper rapid response campaign. This means pointing out every lie and piece of bad information that comes out of Trump’s mouth and repeating it in a coordinated campaign that echoes these messages, reaching voters where they are, on social media, especially Facebook and Instagram. 

Although Plouffe believes that Biden has time to get his campaign in fighting shape, they’re going to have to do so quickly because Democrats already have a huge deficit against the Republicans when it comes to digital tools, data and technology. Also, the Trump campaign has an enormous war chest of money raised, about $225 million between his campaign and the Republican National Committee while Biden and the Democratic National Committee only have about $20 million, after accounting for debts. This gives Trump a huge advantage as it becomes harder and harder to raise money from citizens, many of whom have become cash-strapped during the lockdown.

So far, Biden has given a speech from his home, criticizing Trump’s Coronavirus response and has just launched a podcast called “Here’s the Deal.” But these sorts of efforts capture small audiences, mostly made up of the already faithful. According to Plouffe, Biden’s team will need to strategize three campaigns, one for if the country remains in lockdown, a second if it doesn’t, and a third for some sort of a hybrid situation. 

Biden also has an enthusiasm deficit, which can be extremely important for Democratic voters. One thing he can do to make up for that is to name his Vice Presidential pick soon and keep his promise to make it a woman. From candidates who challenged him for the nomination like Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Elizabeth Warren to other big names like former candidate for Georgia governor Stacey Abrams and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto—Biden would do well to tap into the excitement of a possible first female Vice President and get them out there campaigning as soon as possible, instead of waiting for a convention that is already postponed.

The DNC announced on April 2 that it will postpone the party’s nominating convention planned for July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to August. The conventions play a pivotal role in presenting their candidates and platforms to American voters and they are all about the delegates, who travel from all over the country—and world—to cast their votes. There are many tools that could allow for these to happen online, but it’s doubtful that this can duplicate the excitement and energy that a strong convention can.

Let’s not forget that U.S. elections are multilevel, we will not only elect a president on November 3, there are also elections happening at the state and local level and many of these candidates have turned to actually walking the walk instead of just taking the talk. They are gaining traction by just being good citizens by helping others, especially older people with groceries or hiring newly unemployed people for their campaigns. Biden and his VP candidate should heed this and show Americans what Democratic leadership looks like in the face of a crisis of such historic proportions.