WASHINGTON _ Donald Trump and his campaign have tried for months to shift the focus of the presidential race away from the coronavirus pandemic and onto Joe Biden's mental acuity, violence in American cities, and the ongoing economic recovery.
It's a task that might now be impossible.
The revelation early Friday morning that Trump and his wife, Melania, tested positive for COVID-19 _ an unprecedented bombshell that arrives just one month before Election Day _ is raising new questions about the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which polls show a majority of voters have long viewed negatively.
Concerns about Trump's personal health, he and his family's reluctance to wear masks, and who else they might have exposed to the virus are now paramount _ and they come at a time when the president and his team want voters to be thinking about almost anything else. The White House announced Friday evening that Trump was being transported to the Walter Reed hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, "for the next few days."
"If there are two things the Biden campaign wants this election to be about its Donald Trump the person and his handling of the coronavirus," said Ken Spain, a Republican operative and former congressional aide. "The president somehow found the only way to conjoin the issues."
"Now they're going to have to talk about coronavirus all the time, obviously," added Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who managed John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. "There's no way to escape it."
Trump earlier this week declared that the nation was "rounding the corner" from coronavirus during a demonstration of the rapid testing equipment his administration purchased. He has boasted at rallies in recent days that his supporters, many of whom were not wearing masks, were gathering by the thousands to hear him speak.
Biden has held limited, in-person events with masks and social distancing throughout the pandemic. The Democratic nominee's campaign had only just announced that it would resume in-person voter canvassing hours before Trump told the world he'd tested positive.
Just three days ago, Trump mocked Biden during their first debate for being too eager to wear a mask, saying the former vice president could be addressing people "200 feet away" and still wear "the biggest mask I've ever seen." Trump's family in attendance also pointedly refused to wear masks after taking their seats in the indoor event space.
And in addition to the president, first lady, and a senior White House adviser, at least two additional attendees of a Rose Garden event Saturday where Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to be the next Supreme Court justice have tested positive. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said that he was tested at the White House, but other attendees of the event told McClatchy that they were not.
Now Trump's campaign will not be able to escape the topic, said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who was a spokesman for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
"The president's diagnosis guarantees that there is absolutely no way the campaign can shift the conversation away from an area that is a weakness for the president," Williams said.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll from late last month found that 58% of voters disapproved of the way Trump has handled the pandemic, compared to just 40% who approved. The shift in focus back to the pandemic also comes at a time when polls show Trump trailing Biden by a significant margin nationally and in a handful of critical battleground states.
Regardless of the long-term political effect on the election, Trump's diagnosis was already reshaping activities from both campaigns.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien in an all-staff email on Friday morning directed aides who were exposed to individuals who tested positive for coronavirus to immediately self-quarantine. Campaign aides were also advised to "wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance" and work from home when ill, but Stepien said the election headquarters would remain open.
The Trump campaign also announced that all of previously scheduled campaign events for Trump and his family members would become virtual or be postponed. But Vice President Mike Pence, who tested negative for COVID-19, still planned to continue with his travel schedule.
Williams said that Trump should not actively campaign while he is in quarantine to show that the White House is taking the outbreak seriously, and that Pence should not risk exposure by actively campaigning either.
"The president's health is a national security matter. It has implications for the entire country," Williams said. "The administration needs to ensure that government is functioning properly, and the president needs to show people he's taking the virus seriously and doing everything he can to recover as soon as possible. There really isn't a role for the campaign in that process."
The Biden campaign, in contrast, largely continued with business as usual after the candidate tested negative for the virus.
Biden traveled to Michigan Friday to deliver an address about the economy. He wore a mask the entire time he spoke outdoors in front small, socially distanced audience. His campaign canceled a second event scheduled for later in the day.
Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, also planned to continue with an event in Las Vegas Friday, and Biden's wife, Jill, was set to travel Saturday to Minnesota.
The Democratic ticket's ability to hold events, while Trump was confined to the White House, flips the dynamic present for most of this race, when Biden mostly stuck to his home in Delaware while the president increasingly held rallies and conducted a campaign as if under normal circumstances.
Some Republicans, including Trump, had criticized Biden's circumspect approach as unnecessarily cautious. After Friday's news, however, Democrats said their party was vindicated, and urged their nominee to continue campaigning as normal for the time being with early voting well underway in several key states.
"The election is happening already," Devine said. "Millions of people are voting. Most people will probably vote before November 3. So you need to communicate with them."
Just a day earlier, the Biden campaign announced it would be resuming door-to-door voter canvassing in some states, a reversal from an earlier position that stipulated such in-person outreach would be unsafe.
Democratic strategists said that the campaign's ads should also continue, though they caution that could change if Trump falls seriously ill.
"If the president gets really sick, then of course you're going to pull the negative ads," said Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the Washington-based center-left think tank Third Way. "Because you can't be attacking someone who's really sick."
But Bennett added that if the Trump campaign continued with its own negative ads, Biden would be wise not to let up, either.
Trump had already been holding occasional tele-rallies during the pandemic and he could continue to campaign that way now. While the campaign can employ tactics other than large-scale rallies to reach voters, former Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis said, "There's only one Trump, he is the most powerful tool they have."
Strategists from both parties cautioned that the exact political fallout from Trump's diagnosis is impossible to know, especially as new details continue to emerge. But they say, at minimum, it is adding another jolt of unpredictability to what is already an unprecedented race.
"The novel coronavirus has created the novel campaign of 2020," Bennett said. "And we have entered a phase of the campaign that's generally always tumultuous, but this is like nothing we've ever seen."
