CONTINUING our look at the first presidential debate, we are now just a month away from the November 3 presidential election and no one could have imagined that the “October Surprise”, that normally comes just before election day would be President Donald Trump getting the Covid-19 virus.
The race for the White House just took a very unexpected and very unpredictable turn.
(October Surprise is a term used in a presidential election to describe an unpredictable or unplanned event that could influence the outcome of the election.)
With Trump at Walter Reed Hospital recovering from his battle with the Covid-19 virus, he will be off the campaign trail for at least two weeks.
But the Trump 2020 campaign team will go into overdrive hitting Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with TV ads along with top named supporters doing virtual as well as in-person rallies in the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, Democratic nominee and former vice president Joe Biden is pushing forward with his schedule as planned.
He did order all negative ads against Trump be taken off the air at once and wished the President and First Lady a speedy recovery.
Biden’s week includes a trip to at least three swing states plus an NBC Town Hall tonight with undecided voters, something Trump did last month.
Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, Utah the one and only Vice-Presidential Debate is scheduled. Republican Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic US Senator Kamala Harris are set to square off for 90 minutes.
Pence and Harris are expected to keep up their busy schedules all the way up until November 3. As the duo will travel coast to coast over the next 32 days making their cases to the voters.
As of today, the two additional debates are scheduled for October 15 and October 22 are in limbo until we see how President Trump is doing health wise. The Commission on Presidential Debates has taken a wait-and-see attitude on their future.
Hopes are that Trump can recuperate in time to finish the last couple of weeks of the campaign.
Plus, it is possible that due to the circumstances the Commission on Presidential Debates could reschedule a debate for the final few days of the 2020 campaign should that be the wishes of both Trump and nominee Biden.
The only thing that we do know is from now until Election Day is that the Covid-19 virus is back centre stage as the main topic of this election.
We also know that both sides will get very little sleep as this unconventional 2020 campaign heads into the final weeks with plenty more storylines to emerge. – The Vibes, October 5, 2020
Read: Debate Debacle Part 1: Trump did exactly what he set out to do – Jim Williams
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award winning broadcaster who has covered every presidential election since 1976. He runs his own media organisation LJC L.L.C Media out of Washington DC.
