The Trump campaign is looking to make up for its lack of money for advertising by flooding local news outlets with surrogates like the adult Trump offspring and their partners, in addition to Donald Trump himself. It’s a classic campaign strategy that has extra importance when your campaign has pissed away more than $1 billion and now trails in both cash on hand and the polls. It’s also one with some risks during the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s not the risk of COVID-19 itself, but the risk of awkward questions about it. Local news channels are keenly aware of the coronavirus rates in their own areas, and attuned not just to Trump’s overall failure to control the spread of the virus, but to the added danger he may bring when he holds rallies in their areas. “Your own health experts say avoid crowds and a lack of compliance would lead to preventable death,” WTMJ-TV anchor Charles Benson, in Milwaukee, challenged Trump as he defended his non-distanced rallies.
A USA Today analysis shows how Trump’s earning such challenges. Following at least five of those rallies, coronavirus rates grew more quickly in the two weeks after the rally than the two weeks before.
It’s not just that rates were increasing everywhere, either. In Marathon County, Wisconsin, COVID-19 cases spiked by 67% following Trump’s rally, while Wisconsin’s overall rate grew 29%. In Beltrami County, Minnesota, cases grew by 35% while Minnesota as a whole saw a 14% rise. Cases also rose following Trump rallies in Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; and Dauphin, Pennsylvania. Earlier, Minnesota health officials linked cases, including two hospitalizations, to a Trump rally.
So local media may not be the best place for Trump to promote himself while he’s out on a superspreader tour that hits those same local communities. Not that he has any better options for promoting himself outside of the right-wing media, and he’s got the viewers and listeners of Fox News and right-wing talk radio pretty much locked down. It’s expanding his appeal that’s so challenging.
