Opinions vary significantly over what will happen in Tuesday’s election, and the surprise of 2016 is a big reason why. In normal circumstances, the relative stability of the polls and the race’s trajectory might make this election easier to predict. Yet while most looking at the polls and betting odds would probably rather be Biden than Trump in this final week of the campaign, there is plenty of reason to at least maintain some humility, regardless of which side you believe will prevail.
With that in mind, last Thursday night’s debate made me think of something the historian Niall Ferguson said at an investment conference where we sat on a panel together in May: “This election could become a battle of lockdown vs. not-lockdown, and that is not an election I would encourage the lockdown advocates to want.” COVID-19 should, by rights, be a winning issue for Joe Biden: The pandemic has unfolded on Trump’s watch, making it Trump’s political burden to bear. But the Biden campaign decided on an odd approach to the issue at the debate, and perhaps in the process gave the president an opening to reset the race along the lines Ferguson laid out.
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