What Went Down In Michigan, Washington And Other Democratic Primaries

You can’t project winners in elections based on crowd size at rallies, as we’ve discussed many times on this website. But having big, well-attended rallies is an opportunity to spur positive earned media coverage. So canceling rallies eliminates those opportunities. It also may create more of a sense among the electorate that what’s happening is not normal, and that sentiment can have other, cascading effects.

Speaking of rally cancellations, we were chattering about that a bit earlier today. How much would it matter if the campaigns — including Trump — had to cancel their rallies? Does it change the dynamics of an election a lot? Or not really?

A lot of things affect turnout in primaries. Lower turnout later on in the process could also be true if the race stops looking competitive, for example. I think it’ll be hard to isolate the effect of coronavirus.