The coronavirus has quickly become a highly politicized election-year issue.

Democrats have criticized President Trump for reacting slowly to the crisis, for contradicting the advice of his health experts and for spreading misinformation about the virus. Trump has countered by accusing Democrats and the news media of exaggerating health risks to hurt his reelection campaign.

The American public’s views about the coronavirus are polarized along partisan lines as well. Democrats were more than three times as likely to be “very concerned” about the virus than Republicans in the latest YouGov-Economist poll (43 percent to 12 percent, respectively). Twice as many Democrats as Republicans said the coronavirus poses an “imminent threat” in a recent Ipsos-Reuters survey.

It’s not surprising that Republicans are minimizing the coronavirus threat. Political science research highlights three ways that a pandemic could undermine support for the president.

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Read on, courtesy of The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/09/3-ways-coronavirus-could-end-trumps-presidency/