To state the obvious, we have no idea how the news that President Trump has COVID-19 will affect the presidential campaign — this is simply an unprecedented situation so close to an election. Your best bet: Wait for new polls to be released over the coming days and weeks — any shift in the race should be reflected there. That’s what we’ll be doing.
In the meantime, however, we can look at the closest possible analogy: how other political leaders have fared politically after they were diagnosed with COVID-19.
A handful of world leaders contracted COVID-19 this spring and summer, most prominently British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. And with the massive caveat that it was not election season in the United Kingdom (which can make a real difference in the polls), it doesn’t appear that Johnson’s diagnosis affected his electoral fortunes. According to Politico’s polling average of parliamentary voting intention, support for Johnson’s Conservative Party held steady at 51 percent for weeks following Johnson’s diagnosis.
However, it may have caused a small uptick in his approval rating. According to Morning Consult, 62 percent of Britons approved of Johnson on the day of his diagnosis; shortly after he was hospitalized, it reached a peak of 66 percent. Similarly, YouGov found that