Trump's COVID-19 case might be an electoral game-changer

American political commentators routinely speculate upon the trend of so-called "October surprises" that tend to pop up the month before each presidential election. This term usually refers to a potentially game-changing development, in most cases a controversial report by one's party against their rival, which has the chance to greatly influence the outcome of the upcoming vote.

This year, President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis fulfills that role, which could create both obstacles and opportunities for his re-election.

The president's well-known personal views of previously scoffing at the seriousness of this pandemic prior to doing an about-face and claiming to have taken it seriously this entire time will now be challenged to their core.

According to reports, he has a mild case accompanied by a fever and will be hospitalized at Walter Reed medical center for the next couple of days at least. He's also taking the experimental drug remdesivir, which will allow Americans to see whether it's really as effective as he previously claimed for treating COVID-19 patients.

Trump will now remain quarantined until he recovers. This will obviously prevent him from attending his famous rallies and perhaps even the next two debates.

On those topics, it's unclear at the time of writing exactly how long the president has been sick for, meaning that there's a chance that he might have inadvertently spread it far and wide while traveling the country to meet with supporters. It'll remain to be seen whether that's the case, but it's still worthy of concern.

The debates could still be held in principle though only if they're held remotely. Trump might not agree to that, however, since it would empower the moderator to mute him if he attempts to interject like he did so many times during the last one.

The president isn't known for voluntarily surrendering his power to others, let alone people who he suspects of political bias, so he might not agree to this. Should that be the case, then Biden might flip Trump's narrative by claiming that the president, not the former vice president, is scared of debating.

In terms of his practical day-to-day activities, Trump should still be able to manage them all, or at least most of them. The country will still continue to function since all the information that he needs to run it can be transmitted to him remotely through secure communication channels. He can also delegate relevant responsibilities to his subordinates for executing tasks which would otherwise require him to take care of in person.

Therefore, nobody has any reason to fear for America's political stability any more than they already do.

Optimistically presuming that the president will successfully recover from this disease, he might be able to leverage it to his electoral advantage in making up for canceling his rallies and possibly even the next two debates.

A lot will depend on how severe his case is as well as the effectiveness of his remdesivir treatment. Should he rapidly recover with no complications or possibly only minimal ones, then he might continue to downplay the disease and allege that the Democrats want to lock America down for political reasons.

That scenario could have a tremendous impact on the election and might coincide with the final days of the campaign season. That wouldn't give the Center for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Democrats enough time to convincingly counter his narrative.

Many Americans are already receptive to it and those who are still on the fence about who to vote for in the coming election might be influenced to support him since they'd be led to think that he's a living testament of why this pandemic isn't as serious as many scientists say that it is.

One way or another, COVID-19 has once again become the primary factor determining whether or not Trump will be re-elected.

Be it the economic crisis that the country's lockdown catalyzed or speculation about the general response to it being part of a wide-ranging conspiracy, Americans will probably vote based on their attitude to this virus more than anything else.

It'll be interesting to watch how the Republicans and Democrats spin Trump's sickness for their political benefit even though it's immoral to exploit this as an electoral issue.

Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst.