President Donald Trump's condition has worsened since the White House announced his positive test for COVID-19, and has been rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center, with reports suggesting that his aides wanted him moved while he was visibly healthy for the optics, in case he became too sick to walk on his own.
But according to The Guardian, which spoke to voters in the Republican stronghold of St. Joseph, Missouri, many of his supporters are still completely convinced the president handled the pandemic well — if indeed there was a pandemic at all.
“It’s a hoax. There’s no pandemic. As Trump said, how many millions die of flu?” said trucker Sean Patterson. “If he’s sick, then they planted it when they tested him. It’s what they did to me when I went to hospital for my heart beating too fast. Two weeks later I got a cold. It’s political. I don’t trust the US government at all. Who are they to mandate personal safety? I listen to Trump.”
Even some voters who acknowledge the president showed bad judgment on the pandemic still plan to vote for him.
“I agreed with the president that it was wrong to shut down the country because of coronavirus,” said office manager Karen White. "But he was wrong to question masks. I wish he hadn’t done it. He made things worse and now I have to wonder if he would even have it if he had just listened to what his own advisers were saying." She added, however, that "I will vote for him again ... If Biden becomes president he will be under the control of the socialists."
Missouri has not been seriously contested by both parties at the presidential level since the 2000 election. However, polls suggest that many of the battleground states Trump carried in 2016 are trending against him.