depriving him one of his best chances to recruit new supporters and excite his old ones, while placing a brighter spotlight on his history of rarely wearing a mask and downplaying the severity of the virus.
As the president was admitted to a hospital for treatment Friday, his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, who tested negative for COVID-19 and whom the president had mocked for campaigning virtually, spent the day shoring up support in person in the battleground state of Michigan.
The September jobs report released Friday — the last to be released before Election Day on Nov. 3 — revealed signs of a sputtering recovery just as Trump was counting on the improving economy to propel him to another four years.
Although he has an advantage with voters over Biden on who would best handle the economy, surveys show the country trusts the former vice president by wide margins on managing the coronavirus and the health care system. The president's infection adds new scrutiny to his management of the virus, which has been his political Achilles' heel.
"This does put the focus squarely on the health care side of COVID and not the economic side, which the president and his campaign wanted to focus on," said Republican consultant Matt Gorman, a top aide for the party's House campaign arm in 2018.