Conventions and campaigns in the time of coronavirus

The coronavirus crisis has scrambled the 2020 election – jeopardizing conventions, fundraising, and even the logistics of voting itself.

Dear reader:

It’s becoming clearer by the day that the coronavirus crisis has completely upended the 2020 election.

I’m not talking about the politics, though that’s also been scrambled. I mean the process of getting to November – the conventions, the fundraising, the campaigning, and perhaps the logistics of voting itself.

Joe Biden made this clear on Tuesday when he cast doubt on whether the Democrats would hold their quadrennial convention in Milwaukee in July. All those people crammed into an arena, wearing Uncle Sam hats and cheering?

“It’s hard to envision that,” Mr. Biden told Brian Williams of MSNBC.

It’s a bit easier to envision the Republican convention going on, since it isn’t scheduled until the last week in August, in Charlotte. And President Donald Trump does love the visual pop of a big raucous crowd.

But what about Mr. Trump’s rallies? They’re the opposite of social distancing. It could be mid-summer before they seem like a good idea. Basic door-to-door campaigning for lower-level officials seems out of the question for now, too.