Ten days after testing positive for COVID-19 United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized on April 5. The Conservative Party leader would soon end up in intensive care and he was nearly placed on a ventilator.
After getting discharged on April 12 Johnson acknowledged the virus nearly claimed his life: “It could have gone either way.”
Benefiting from a wave of sympathy, Johnson’s near-death experience was followed by a massive jump in his approval rating. On March 16, 46% of British adults said Johnson was doing “very well” or “fairly well” job as prime minister. But by April 13, that had soared to 66% approval, according to YouGov polling.
The uptick in Johnson’s approval begs the question: Could President Donald Trump, who was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for COVID-19 on Friday, see a similar upswing?
We won’t know for sure until later this week when polling from the weekend publishes. In the meantime, Coins2Day took a look at the data to see what we could expect.
The data suggest a COVID-19 boost would be minimal for Trump. For the most part Trump’s approval rating holds steady during both good and bad news cycles. The president seems to have a low ceiling—a 47.8% approval high-point achieved the first week of his presidency—and a high floor—36.4% approval in December 2017.
Despite impeachment, a pandemic, and recession, Trump’s approval rating has barely moved this year: Peaking at 45.8% in April, and reaching a bottom of 40.1% in July. As of Monday, Trump has a 44.2% approval rating, finds FiveThirtyEight’s aggregated polling calculation.
And if Trump does get an approval rating bounce like Johnson, it could be short-lived. The United Kingdom prime minister saw his approval peak at 66% after leaving the hospital. However, by June, it was down to 43%. Johnson’s current approval stands at just 35%.
But the Trump campaign would likely be happy with even a short-term lift. Trump’s 44.2% approval rating is lower than the last four incumbent presidents who were re-elected: Ronald Reagan (54.5%), Bill Clinton. (57.8%), George W. Bush (49.3%), and Barack Obama (49.3%), according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump’s pre-election approval rating beats those of Jimmy Carter (37.9%) and George H.W. Bush (32.6%)—both lost their re-election campaigns.
And trump is falling behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The former vice president leads Trump in nine states the President won in 2016, according to RealClearPolitics poll averages. If Biden were to win every state carried by Hillary Clinton along with the nine Trump states he’s leading in (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), he would walk away with at least 368 electoral votes. A win requires only 270 electoral votes.
As of Monday, FiveThirtyEight forecast the odds of Biden winning the electoral college at 80%, while The Economist forecast the Democratic nominee having a 89% chance.