It all fInally caught up to hIm. the lIes, the
boasts, the disorder and disastrous management, the
rants and the race- baiting, the predatory instincts
and compulsion to dominate—all the things that
made Donald Trump the ringmaster of the Ameri-
can political circus at last compelled a majority of
voters to drive him out of the tent.
Modern American history had not seen his like:
a showman President who held rapt the country he
inflamed, and asked little of citizens except praise.
In the end, Trump’s pride did not just precede his
fall; it precipitated it. Until the final months, his cam-
paign was managed by a novice. Trump thought he
could wish away a deadly virus. He governed only
to his base and, facing re-election without ever hav-
ing cracked 50% approval in Gallup polling, refused
to pivot toward the center that decides winners. He
rarely spoke of a policy vision for a second term.
And yet he outperformed the expectations of many,
thanks to a formidable ground game, a sophisticated
campaign data operation and a passionate base of
support still drawn to his no-holds-barred style, his
push for deregulation and tax cuts, and his conser-
vative makeover of the federal judiciary.
Trump’s presidency was marked by scandals and
controversies as varied as they were alarming. He re-
fused to face the roots of the country’s racial dispari-
ties and doubled down on a message of white griev-
ance. One of the dominant political trends of his
tenure was the exodus of suburbanites, white women,
college- educated voters and independents from the
Republican Party. His prospects for re- election were
dragged down by a pandemic that exposed his weak-
nesses along with ours. Chief among them was his
reckless approach to a virus that landed him in the
hospital at the peak of the campaign. “If the Presi-
dent never gets COVID, he wins the election. Our
polling showed a significant dip when that happened,
HOW
TRUMP
LOST
A pandemic found the limits of
a President without boundaries
BY BRIAN BENNETT AND
TESSA BERENSON
particularly with sub urban, college- educated, non-
liberal men,” says GOP strategist Brad Todd. “Trump
getting COVID sent a signal to those people that his
management style had consequences, even for him
personally, and was therefore unlikely to change.”
Presidents’ legacies are formed in the crucible of
great challenges. When COVID-19 hit, Trump pulled
open the tears in our national fabric even wider. Just
before Election Day, as the U.S. suffered its worst
spike in cases since the pandemic began, Trump
mocked the virus as a media conspiracy.
Voters knew better. More than 10 million Ameri-
cans were infected, and of the roughly 240,000 who
died, the majority were seniors, a demographic group
crucial to Trump’s 2016 win. The crisis called for a
President who could be tough and empathetic, put
forth concrete plans to deal with it and mourn with
ELECTION
2020
