One can’t start talking about the current United States elections without talking about Covid-19 and its impact on the election campaigns and whether it is going to affect the voters’ decisions.
However, looking back at the history of the United States, past election campaigns happened during economic catastrophes such as the Great Depression and through wars such as World War I and II.
So, this is not the first time that the United States deals with such circumstances. Yet, it is fair to say that this crisis is a little different.
You Might Ask How Different?
The answer is very simple; the enemy is invisible and spreading fast. And at the same time, the country is politically divided which can be seen in both the government’s and individuals’ responses.
The current pandemic has put a stop to traditional presidential campaigns. As you can see, Biden can’t travel to promote his plans, while Trump is robbed of his wild and loud rallies.
So, to overcome the many obstacles this pandemic has created, both presidential candidates began to largely depend on the different online platforms for their election campaigns.
Biden's Campaign
Biden’s online campaign seems to be calm and traditional. Online events are advertised to his supporters with a focus on electorate groups and current issues, which was the way in a normal campaign.
There is also the use of Zoom by Jill Biden at a “virtual campaign stop” with Keith James, mayor of West Palm Beach, to promote Biden’s plans for seniors.
We also witnessed Biden and Barack Obama in a 15-minute online conversation about the Trump Administration’s catastrophic performance.
Trump's Campaign
On the other hand, Trump’s campaign has built a very sophisticated digital operation that works on creating a flawless image of Trump and portraying him and the Republicans as the saviours.
Trump’s digital campaign went a step further and created a Trump 2020 App which they claim to help Trump’s supporter get the facts straight from the source and not through mainstream media.
The Loss of Local News
While these online campaigns are effective, they resulted in the loss of local news coverage which candidates can only have through campaign rallies and events.
While this might be true from Biden’s campaign; the same can’t be said about Trump’s campaign because Trump still gets local news coverage through his official travels.
Concerns of Public Health Officials
Recently, with the Election Day is less than two weeks away, the president is back on stage with a full campaign schedule.
Public health officials have expressed their concerns many times about the Trump’s campaign decision to go ahead with large rallies especially in states like Wisconsin where the number of cases are on the rise.
Most Effective Way To Persuade Voters
Researchers consider door knocking and holding a face to face conversations with the voters to be the most effective way to get them to turnout.
So, and usually around this time in the elections, campaigns start to move from focusing on registration and persuasion of voters to pushing them to the polls, and presidential candidates’ campaigners start knocking on millions of doors a week in an attempt to reach as many voters as possible.
However, Biden’s campaign announced that they are not planning on doorknocking this year due to Covid-19. They believe that door-knocking holds a serious risk to both, the workers and the voters.
One group that tried to get Democrats to vote by door-knocking, the Progressive Turnout Project, had to stop its operations in many states after some of their employees tested positive to Covid-19.
As for Trump’s campaign and according to the Republican National Committee, the Republican campaigners are still door knocking despite the increase of Covid-19 cases.
This has created an intense debate about the ethics of going door knocking amid a pandemic. What is interesting, and despite the pandemic, Americans are more politically engaged in this year’s elections in comparison to previous years.
In a poll conducted by Fox News in July, around 85% said they were very motivated to vote. This is simply proven by a record turnout number of people to vote in both Texas and Georgia.
Concerns of Voters
That said, the pandemic impact on voters should be taken seriously. Many are fearful of going to vote in person and this especially bad for communities that prefer going to the polls.
There are also the election officials who have to accommodate the new requirements such as social distancing and the wearing of personal protective equipment.
These new requirements should have made the election workers feel safe and protected but still many didn’t feel safe working the polls, which resulted in a high absentee rate.
This has created a new pressure on the authorities where they needed to adjust with the high number of absentees. To overcome the above problems, some states took practical steps to protect voters and workers alike.
They created new voting centres, hiring more poll workers, implementing a number of different protective measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 during in-person voting, increasing voters’ awareness, and tackling the issue of in-person absentee and postal voting.
The pandemic didn’t only impact the election campaigns, but it might have played an important role in increasing people’s political awareness and why their votes really matter.
Some argued that this might be due to people being in quarantine and spending more time reading, watching the news, and thinking of what would be best of their country’s future.
Written by - Sawsan Alnadi
Edited by - Christeena George
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