TORONTO -- Sometimes, a week in politics feels more like a month. This was one of those weeks.
Let’s start with the obvious: U.S. President Donald Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 for three days and is now back at the White House, where he is being monitored by top government doctors and treated with steroids typically reserved for severe infections. All the while Trump has been releasing campaign-style videos, sometimes from within the hospital, and he has vowed to get back on the campaign trail as soon as possible.
It’s still unclear when that could be. Trump said Wednesday that he “feels great,” but his doctor says he won’t be totally out of the woods until next Monday. For some patients, COVID-19 can take a week before the worst effects of the virus kick in.
More than a dozen people from his inner circle have been infected, including first lady Melania Trump, former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who coached Trump for the first debate.
But Trump’s diagnosis wasn’t the only election news this week. With 26 days to go before Americans vote, here’s a look at what you need to know.
WHAT THE POLLS SAY
Pollsters anticipated that, by now, enough time would’ve passed since the first debate that we’d have a better idea of how the primetime TV showdown influenced polls. Obviously Trump’s diagnosis threw those expectations out the window, and now it’s hard to disentangle whether the debate or Trump’s diagnosis is moving polls.
But one thing is for certain: the polls are moving, and not in Trump’s favour.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s national lead has widened to 10 points, up from seven points this time last week, according to the New York Times’ Upshot. Real Clear Politics, which calculates the polling average to the decimal point, has Biden ahead by 9.4 points.
When we first started looking at polling averages a couple weeks ago, FiveThirtyEight gave Trump a 25 in 100 chance of winning the election, based on a mix of polling and other factors, such as past voter behaviour. Now, those odds have dwindled to 16 in 100.
As for battleground states, Trump’s bad news continues. New polls from the New York Times show Trump trailing in Ohio (by one point), Nevada (by six points), and all-important Pennsylvania (by seven points.) Losing Ohio would be huge, since no Republican has ever won the White House without it.
One of the most discouraging signs for Republicans is this: if polls are as wrong this year as they were in 2016, Biden would still win the election by a comfortable margin, according to the Times, which gives Biden 319 electoral votes under the hypothetical polling error. Only 270 electoral votes are needed to win.
For those keeping track: Biden’s lead right now is significantly wider than Hillary Clinton’s was at this time in 2016, when she held a 5.6-point advantage over Trump.
VP DEBATE
The vice-presidential debate offered a much more civil conversation than last week’s presidential debate, though the polarization in America was on clear display. Fittingly, the two candidates were separated by plexiglass barriers.
California Senator Kamala Harris slammed Vice President Mike Pence on the Trump administration’s record on COVID-19, calling the response a “cover up” that has cost America 211,000 lives. Pence defended Trump’s record and accused Biden and the Obama administration of bungling the 2009 response to the swine flu, which killed an estimated 12,000 Americans.
One of the tensest moments of the night came when Pence directly questioned Harris over whether Biden plans to pack the Supreme Court in the event that he wins the White House. Biden did not directly answer the question in the last debate, and neither did Harris, who instead insisted that whoever wins the White House should be responsible for filling the Supreme Court vacancy left after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
One of the sillier moments of the night came after a fly landed on Pence’s head for a portion of the debate, lighting up Twitter with jokes.
The vice-presidential debate doesn’t typically move the needle on presidential elections, but this race is already far from typical.
CAMPAIGNING WITHOUT TRUMP
With Trump quarantining in the White House, his campaign has been forced to shift gears fast. For now, Trump’s rallies have either been cancelled or gone virtual, but it’s possible that Trump could still wrap up the race with in-person rallies, assuming his condition improves.
All the while, Biden has continued to follow through on his own in-person campaigning in key states like Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Bernie Sanders has also launched his own get-out-the-vote tour in New Hampshire and Michigan, two states that supported him during the Democratic primaries. Biden hopes that Sanders can help broaden his coalition to include some of the most left-minded Democrats, including young people, a historically engaged but fickle group of voters.
NO COVID-19 STIMULUS?
New federal aid for Americans that could’ve helped boost Trump’s lagging re-election chances has now been stalled, thanks to Trump.
On Tuesday, the president called off talks with the Democrats on COVID-19 relief and delayed any aid until after the election. Trump accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of not negotiating in good faith, while Biden accused Trump of not caring about Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.
North American stock markets immediately plunged following the president’s fiscal announcement, made via tweet.
But then things got a bit confusing. Later in the day, Trump called on Congress to send him a "Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200).”
"I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?” he tweeted.
As Canadians who followed the NAFTA negotiations know all too well, these sorts of public policy announcements over Twitter and sudden reversals are part of how Trump negotiates high-level deals.
NEXT DEBATE IN LIMBO
The next presidential debate was scheduled for one week away, on Oct. 15, but whether or not that actually happens is yet to be seen. Trump initially said he planned to attend, but Biden said a debate should not be held if Trump is still infected with COVID-19, and that he would base his decision on the guidance of medical experts.
Everything changed on Thursday when the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced that the next debate, which was set to take place in Miami with questions from the audience, will be held virtually. The reason for the last-minute change, the commission said, was health concerns following Trump’s infection.
Trump rejected that plan and made it clear that he won’t participate in any debates that aren’t face-to-face. Biden suggested pushing the debate back a week, to Oct. 22, which Trump accepted on the condition that the event would be held in person, and that the third debate be held Oct. 29 — five days before the election. Biden rejected the proposal.
Whether or not the two candidates face off again before Nov. 3 remains to be seen, but considering the response to the last debate, voters may not feel like they’re missing out.
A HAIRY REVELATION
Trump’s hairstyle has always been a pillar of his image, but it may also be getting him in hot water.
The New York Times’ explosive report that Trump didn’t pay federal income tax for 10 of the last 15 years included an interesting tidbit: he reportedly spent more than US$70,000 on hairstyling during his years on “The Apprentice,” and Trump’s production company deducted the hairstyling bills from his taxable income, thereby reducing his tax bill.
Tax experts tell the Times that this could be criminal, as deducting a personal expense from your taxes is prohibited.
FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY
October is the month of changing leaves, pumpkin spice everything and political surprises, and by this time in 2016, Americans were inundated with one of the most jaw-dropping October surprises in modern political history.
The infamous Access Hollywood tape had just dropped in which Trump bragged about women letting him kiss them and grab their genitals because he’s famous.
"When you're a star they let you do it … You can do anything,” he says in the video. "Grab them by the p----. You can do anything.”
Trump apologized for the lewd comments, which aired on loop on national television for weeks. But Republicans had already started turning away from Trump, with 17 senators, 24 representatives and several GOP governors publicly pulling their support. Many political analysts suggested that the shocking footage spelled the end of Trump’s election chances.
But Clinton was facing a political firestorm of her own.
On the very same day as the Access Hollywood tape came out, WikiLeaks dropped a trove of thousands of emails obtained by hacking the personal email of Clinton’s campaign chairman. The documents, which were posted online, included text of speeches delivered to corporate executives and investment bankers at closed-door events.
Among the most damaging passages were comments to real estate investors that "you need both a public and private position” and an admission to a group of investment bankers that she is “kind of far removed” from the middle-class upbringing she’d cited throughout her campaign.
