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.

Should Mr Biden win next week, he would be wise to acknowledge that the frustrations that propelled Mr Trump to the presidency have not vanished. Should Mr Trump scrape through to a second term, he should remember his own vows to focus on the forgotten American. America’s middle class remains beleaguered. Distrust of institutions hovers at all-time highs. The ingredients for another populist backlash — more menacing still than Mr Trump’s — are still in place.

Mr Trump’s disregard for science during this pandemic tops the charge sheet against him. Even today, three weeks after having been hospitalised, the president holds unmasked rallies in which he dismisses Covid-19 as an exaggerated threat. The infection curves tell the opposite story. If Americans wore masks, some community spread and deaths could be prevented. Yet Mr Trump still mocks social distancing. By election day, almost a quarter of a million Americans will have died. This is the greatest failure in US governance since at least the Vietnam war.