Donald Trump has COVID

I would not wish death on anybody under any circumstances.  However, considering Donald Trump's ongoing reaction to the COVID-19 virus it is hard not to believe that his contracting the virus is karma.  I hope that he fully recovers but not until sometime in late November.

There is some talk about how this will impact the election.  For that we are going to have to wait-and-see but there are several scenarios have been talked about.

1. Mr. Trump will receive a sympathy bump that might allow him to eke out a victory.  While that is certainly a possibility I have a hard time seeing it happen because most of the time people feel sympathetic towards a person who is likeable and Mr. Trump is not that.  He has cultivated an image of being an unlikeable blowhard since he became famous.  If something like this would have happened to Al Gore or John McCain, during their runs for the White House, it might have put them over the top but I find it hard to believe anybody but those who already support him will feel sympathy for him.
2. Mr. Trump will beat this thing and come back even stronger.  This is related to the first point and it would be much more feasible if he was likeable.
3. This puts the final nail in the coffin of the Trump campaign for re-election.  It is the crucial last month of the campaign and if he is out of the picture for any length of time he will be toast.  This assertion has merit.  If he is unable to campaign for a significant amount of time in the last month then it would be hard to him to win.
4. Now that Mr. Pence will be more front and centre for the last weeks of the campaign Republican fortunes will improve because he is not as much of a lightning rod as Mr. Trump.  This one is silly because it assumes that Americans will somehow forget the last four years over the next four weeks.  As well, there is a reason why Mr. Pence was chosen as Mr. Trump's running mate.  He is about as charismatic as a turnip so there was never any risk of him overshadowing Mr. Trump.  In short, he was the perfect presidential running mate.  To think that him being put front and centre will change Republican fortunes is wishful.  Incidentally, Mr. Pence fits the mold of most VP candidates, unremarkable and dull.  The fact that Mr. Biden chose Ms. Harris does not receive enough attention because she is anything but unremarkable and dull.  Did he choose her because he is not expecting to complete his term? 
5. The election will be delayed.  That would be hard because US elections are a whole bunch of smaller elections, administered and controlled by each state.  I have a hard time believing that anybody would be able to convince all 50 governors to delay the elections.  And even if that were to happen how long would it be delayed.  Federal law indicates that Mr. Trump is President and Mr. Pence is VP until January 20.  On that date they no longer hold their respective offices and alot of work needs to be done between November 3 and January 20, regardless of who wins the election.  So a delay is probably not feasible even if some state governors would want to do it.  

I have seen some American commentators demanding that Mr. Biden suspend his campaign until Mr. Trump recovers, which he should certainly not do.  One of my pet peeves with progressive political parties is they have this sense that the should fight fair even when their conservative opponents are using every dirty trick in the book to win.  And if the nomination of Ms. Barrett to SCOTUS does not finally convince Democrats that the Republicans are playing the political game to win then I do not know what will.  

As well, Mr. Trump's condition is not a sudden and surprising condition.  This virus has been around for nine months and Mr. Trump has been downplaying it and suggesting silly cures for it during that entire period.  Hell, for crass political reasons Mr. Trump did not even take basic precautions against contracting the virus.  The way he was going it was probably only a matter of time before he caught the virus so no one should be surprised.  If this were a normal year, without a deadly virus stalking the globe then maybe there would be an argument for suspending the Democratic campaign until he recovered but this is not a normal year.  Mr. Trump failed to take all of the necessary precautions to prevent contracting a virus during a global pandemic and that has given the Democrats a potential gift.  They should take full advantage of it.

How all of this shakes out is still up in the air.  There are way too many variables for anybody to have a definitive answer.  We will have to wait and see.