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The strong economy didn’t make Trump, but coronavirus collapse could break him

SOURCE: CNN

(CNN)The last time an incumbent president lost reelection — George H.W. Bush, in 1992 — an “it’s the economy, stupid” campaign theme took him down. Unemployment then was hovering around 7.5%.In the calamitous spring of 2020, that sounds like a long-lost boomtime. The Labor Department last week reported unemployment at 14.7%, with 20 million jobs lost in April. Administration economists warn US output may plummet at a 40% annual rate in the second quarter.Those staggering measures of economic suffering do not guarantee that President Donald Trump will meet the same one-term fate as Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton. But they underscore the uphill fight Trump faces, and explain his abrupt shift from coronavirus containment to economic reopening.The political landscape has turned upside down since 1992. When Republicans sought their fourth consecutive presidential victory that year, California and New Jersey were still reliably red states. The post-Civil Rights-era voter realignment remained incomplete.Looser partisan attachments gave changing economic conditions more power to change a president’s political standing. The first President Bush saw his Gallup approval rating soar to 89% as America triumphed in the first Gulf War, then plunge below 40% when voters’ attention turned to the economic recession underway at the same time.

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