The 2020 US Presidential election: Trump's wars on COVID-19, health insurance, and trade

We analyze the impact of three issues on the 2020 US Presidential election, each of which has been influentially shaped by the Trump administration – the COVID-19 pandemic, fragility of the massive health insurance coverage expansion after the Affordable Care Act, and the trade war. Evidence on the causal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is mixed. If anything, higher COVID-19 deaths improved Trump's vote share, perhaps due to voter beliefs about his ability to repair the post-COVID economy. In contrast, we present strong causal evidence that the expansion of health insurance coverage hurt Trump's vote share, presumably due to voter fears about such expansion being rolled back. The point estimates imply that Trump would have won Georgia, Arizona, and possibly Nevada in the absence of this effect which would have put him on the precipice of re-election. While US tariffs and agricultural subsidies imposed during the trade war appear endogenous, foreign retaliation appears exogenous but has little electoral impact.