Evidence from polling, exit polls, and post‑election analyses indicates that COVID‑19 and related restrictions were indeed a salient issue by November 2020, but they hurt Trump rather than becoming a key advantage for him.

1. The antecedent mostly held: COVID and pandemic policy were top election issues.

• Surveys in mid‑ to late‑2020 found the coronavirus outbreak was among the top issues for voters, alongside the economy and racial inequality.
  • Pew (Aug & Oct 2020) shows majorities saying the coronavirus was a very important factor in their vote.(pewresearch.org)
  • KFF’s September 2020 tracking poll found the coronavirus outbreak named as the single most important issue by about one‑fifth of voters (second only to the economy).(kff.org)
• NBC/ CNBC exit polling on Election Day found the economy, racial inequality, and the Covid‑19 crisis as the top three issues; 52% of voters said controlling the pandemic even at the expense of the economy was more important than reopening.(cnbc.com)

So pandemic conditions and restrictions remained highly salient into November.

2. Voters largely disapproved of Trump’s COVID handling and trusted Biden more.

• By July–October 2020, national and swing‑state polls showed solid majorities disapproving of Trump’s handling of the pandemic (e.g., 61% disapprove vs. 35% approve in KFF July poll; ~40% approve vs. ~58–61% disapprove in late‑Oct Marquette and other polls).(kff.org)
• Pew in April 2020 already found about two‑thirds of Americans saying Trump had been too slow in his initial response.(pewresearch.org)
• Analyses noted that as COVID worsened, more voters preferred Biden over Trump as crisis manager; Brookings summarized that the more the election became a referendum on Trump’s pandemic management, the worse his prospects looked.(brookings.edu)

3. COVID as a top issue benefited Biden, not Trump.

• An internal post‑election autopsy by Trump’s own pollster, Tony Fabrizio, concluded Trump “lost the 2020 election largely because of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic”; voters in 10 key states rated the pandemic as their top issue and gave Biden significantly higher marks.(washingtonpost.com)
• Reporting on that autopsy notes that voters who saw coronavirus as a top priority broke for Biden by nearly 3‑to‑1.(independent.co.uk)
• NBC exit polls found that among voters prioritizing the pandemic and favoring stronger virus control over faster reopening, support skewed heavily toward Biden.(cnbc.com)

4. Scholarship finds the pandemic reduced Trump’s vote share.

• A peer‑reviewed study on COVID‑19 and the 2020 election found that higher local COVID case incidence decreased support for Trump, especially in urban counties, swing states, and states he had won in 2016; they estimate that with even modestly fewer cases, Trump likely would have been reelected.(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
  This directly contradicts the idea that ongoing pandemic conditions and restrictions became an electoral asset for him.

5. Lockdown anger did not override perceptions of incompetence in 2020.

• While there was visible backlash to lockdowns, polling in key swing states showed many voters instead blamed Trump for reopening too quickly and failing to model protective behaviors; a CNBC/Change poll found 55% agreed that Trump was pushing states to reopen too fast to help his reelection, and many cited him as the top person responsible for surging cases.(cnbc.com)
• Axios’s retrospective review of COVID’s political impact notes that COVID was a central issue in 2020 and that voters prioritizing virus control over the economy helped defeat Trump—though lockdown and school‑closure backlash later aided Republicans in 2024, not 2020.(axios.com)

Conclusion
By November 2020, COVID and pandemic restrictions were still major issues, but instead of “superseding” concerns about Trump’s earlier mishandling and turning into a key pro‑Trump issue, they remained tightly linked to perceptions of his incompetence and were a central reason he lost the election. The core prediction—that if COVID/lockdowns were still salient, the issue would primarily benefit Trump—is therefore wrong.