“If not for COVID he would’ve won re-election by a mile.”

I disagree. Because of COVID he would’ve won re-election by a mile. If he behaved like a normal president, showed even a modicum of sympathy toward the collective grief of the country, and then just stepped back and let his government govern its way through a pandemic, he not only would’ve won re-election, his legacy would’ve been cemented. The rally around the flag effect is a helluva drug, after all. But Trump couldn’t do that. He became obsessed with downplaying the virus and pretending it was nonexistent/on the verge of disappearing, no matter how much the death toll rose.

Why do you think he couldn’t govern rather than try to rebrand a global pandemic? Why do you think it was so hard for Trump to simply give an address from the Oval Office and tell Americans “I know you’re frightened and suffering, but we’ll get through this” and then let the people who knew how to manage this do their jobs?