It is an awkward fact that Joe Biden owes much, if not all, of his poll lead to Donald Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. It would be good to say that America had soured on Mr Trump after having weighed his overall record since 2017: the Ukraine pay-for-play schemes that resulted in his impeachment last year; the wrecking ball Mr Trump has taken to US alliances; his stoking of white nationalist militias; his withdrawal from the Paris accord on climate change; his corrupt misuse of the presidential pardon; and his self-harming trade war with China. Yet until early spring, Mr Trump’s chances of being re-elected were close to even. This was mostly because the US economy was in reasonable shape, which coronavirus then destroyed. Even today, and in spite of Mr Trump’s refusal to agree a federal plan to flatten the infection curve, most Americans still trust him more on the economy.
令人尷尬的是，喬?拜登(Joe Biden)民調領先在很大程度上（如果不是全部的話）歸功于唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)對新型冠狀病毒大流行的不當應對。可以說，美國是在權衡了特朗普自2017年以來的總體記錄后對他產生反感的：烏克蘭的“收錢辦事”計劃，該計劃導致他去年遭到彈劾；特朗普帶給美國盟友的毀滅性打擊；他煽動白人民族主義民兵；他退出了關于氣候變化的《巴黎協定》；他濫用總統赦免權；以及他與中國的貿易戰，這場戰爭傷害了美國自己。然而，就在今年早春之前，特朗普連任的可能還是接近五五分的。這主要是因為當時美國經濟狀況還不錯，后來新型冠狀病毒讓這種狀況蕩然無存。即使在今天，盡管特朗普拒絕同意一項旨在拉平感染曲線的聯邦計劃，但大多數美國人仍然在經濟問題上更信任他。