Trump’s Republican base is still with him, but other key voting blocs — independents, suburbanites, women — have turned away. The relatively minor rally in his approval ratings that came when the novel coronavirus crisis began is now fading, and Trump remains the only president whose Gallup approval rating has never climbed as high as 50 percent…

Even worse for Trump, he has to try to fight the narrative that his own denial and inattention left the country more vulnerable to covid-19 than it should have been and thus made our suffering worse. Unfortunately for him, this narrative is true.

His refusal to issue a national stay-at-home advisory, leaving that politically unpalatable task to the governors, ensures that the covid-19 crisis will not end when it ebbs in hard-hit metropolitan areas such as New York and Detroit. Instead, experts say, we will continue to see pockets of infection flare up in small towns and rural areas — Trump country — where the president said covid-19 was less of a problem.