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funny how most people saw it that way on election day (4 Nov in Australia which is ahead of US time):

4 Nov: The Australian: US Election: In 2020, it’s still the economy, stupid …
By Natasha Robinson
Joe Biden thought he’d read the national mood — Americans were more worried about coronavirus then they were about the economy. But as voters filed out of ballot booths, his miscalculation became clear.
Exit polls showed the economy was easily the single-biggest factor influencing votes in the US election...
And it may yet keep Donald Trump in the White House...

But an exit poll conducted by Edison Research for major American television networks, said only two out of 10 voters nominated the pandemic as the most important issue. The economy rated as the top-order issue for one-third of voters polled, including six out of 10 voters who supported Mr Trump...

Salvatore Babones, a political sociologist at the University of Sydney, said the importance of the coronavirus to voters’ intentions had been overstated. “For ordinary people, it’s the economy that matters most,” he said...

Professor Babones said Mr Biden’s decision to shun rallies may have cost him crucial votes.
“The Democrats ran an empty chair campaign against Donald Trump,” he said. “Campaigning would have made a difference.”...
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/us-election-in-2020-its-still-the-economy-stupid/news-story/c3d1f8c39aacca138b5a3c601ba328d8

and why wouldn’t Trump have won?

16 Nov: The Hill: Why Trumpism is here to stay
By Kristin Tate (libertarian author and an analyst for Young Americans for Liberty. She is a Robert Novak journalism fellow at the Fund for American Studies)
If Biden is inaugurated on January 20, it won’t be because the Trump agenda is unpopular. Generally speaking, Americans have benefitted from policies associated with “Trumpism.” Just weeks before the presidential election, an impressive 56 percent of voters said they were better off than they were four years ago; that 56 percent is higher than when the same question was asked in 1984, 1992, 2004, and 2012, when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama ran for reelection.
It’s easy to see why...

Still, on election night the GOP made strong and unexpected gains that will severely impair the ability of Biden, and Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi to steer the legislative ship. The final tallies are not yet out, but the House and Senate results indicate that hundreds of thousands of Americans simultaneously voted against Trump but for Republicans who backed his policies down-ballot. This suggests that many of these voters approve of Trumpism as a platform, but not of Trump himself...

The “Make America Great Again” platform proved to be remarkably popular well outside of the traditional white working class. Consider that Trump won Native American voters, dramatically increased his share among black and Latino voters, and even doubled his support in the gay and transgender community. When you combine the president’s populist policy prescriptions—namely tax cuts, America-first manufacturing, strict immigration measures, and little foreign intervention—together, and subtract out Trump’s personality, you get a majority of voters...
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/526166-why-trumpism-is-here-to-stay

30 Oct: The Hill: Trump or Biden? On the economy, the choice is clear
By Liz Peek
Americans have a choice: They can vote for President Trump, the candidate who just delivered the fastest quarter of growth in the nation’s history, or for Joe Biden, who as vice president presided over the slowest economic recovery since World War II.
The difference is stark.

The Commerce Department just announced that gross domestic product grew at an annual 33.1 percent rate in the third quarter, topping expectations and doubling the prior record period of growth set in the 1950s...

Consumer and business optimism soared in the weeks after Trump was elected. Consumer sentiment in September 2016 was recorded at 89.8; by December, post-election, the index had jumped to 98.2. That represented a 12-year peak, according to the University of Michigan at the time.
According to their press release, the “expected favorable impact of Trump’s policies on the economy” influenced the survey.

Even today, consumers remain surprisingly upbeat, in spite of the sharp second-quarter downturn and, more recently, the cutoff of extra unemployment benefits. The October University of Michigan survey puts sentiment at 81.2, up from the low of 71.8 recorded in April.
Of course, optimism is way below the peak of 101 reached in February, before the virus hit — a level not once reached during the Obama-Biden years. Not once.

Under Trump, business sentiment rallied too. Post-election in December 2016, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey of small-business optimism reached its highest level since 2004.
Like consumers, small-business owners, the backbone of our economy, are upbeat in spite of the downturn...

Biden seems to have learned nothing from the sluggish recovery the country endured during his time in the White House. Given the chance, he intends to reenact the Obama regimen of heavy regulation and higher taxes...
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/523511-trump-or-biden-on-the-economy-the-choice-is-clear