The challenges Donald Trump has faced in his election campaign

With Election Day drawing ever nearer, US President Donald Trump may privately be biting his nails as the US presidential election threatens to slip out of his grasp. At the time of writing, it’s Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden who holds the edge in the political betting odds, and the President faces a race to reverse the polls ahead of November 3^rd.

The 2020 election campaign has been far from plain sailing for Trump. Even at the best of times, the President would have had a difficult challenge ahead of him to win a second term in office, but then the impact of the coronavirus pandemic sent the world into an unforeseen spiral. Now, the issue of the virus, which didn’t exist 12 months ago, is one of the major talking points in the run-up to the election.

Handling the coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest challenge for Trump in this election campaign. The President’s inclination is to adopt a cavalier stance when it comes to the virus, to let shops and businesses operate freely without heavy restrictions and get the economy moving again. Striking the balance between prioritising health and guarding against economic collapse has been the biggest challenge for all politicians across the world since the virus took hold, and Trump has found it difficult to keep the public onside throughout the pandemic.

It would not be outlandish to suggest that if Trump ultimately loses the election, it will have been his handling of the coronavirus that cost him the win. After all, the President was in a much stronger position in terms of his chances of re-election in early 2020, before the virus had become a major global issue. It’s been a difficult time for heads of state across the world, but Trump’s comments and policies surrounding the pandemic have perhaps created more controversy than most.

Another challenge Trump has faced is running a campaign without the immense sense of change his presence brought in 2016. His winning of the Republican nomination was seen as a landmark moment in American politics – a changing of the guard, so to speak. But while Trump’s brash persona and tendency to speak his mind may have caused many Americans to sit up and take notice four years ago, now that Trump has held office for almost four years, his style has perhaps lost its freshness.

And so, throughout the campaign, Trump has been attempting to prove himself worthy of another term in office. In the second televised presidential debate, Trump cut a more measured figure, allowing Biden more time to speak without constantly interrupting as in the first debate. Whether this was a deliberate attempt to temper Trump’s confrontational style is anyone’s guess, but it’s clear that Trump needs to regain voter support, and his prior tactics didn’t seem to be working.

While Biden may hold the edge in the polls and the betting odds, Trump will still be confident of his ability to overcome those odds on Election Day. He did it four years ago, and although Biden looks set to run Trump closer as far as the Electoral College is concerned, the President will still have hope that he can produce another victory on November 3^rd.