That ‘one thing’ was, naturally, the COVID-19 pandemic. If your country lost over 210,000 of its citizens to coronavirus, then catching it yourself could be seen to be a major strategic misstep.

Trump’s attempts to belittle the crisis, and to maintain that it’s not a threat, and even “a blessing from God,” looked a little flimsy as he was first swept into hospital (with son Eric openly calling for prayers,) and it looked no better when his self-penned miracle cure and recovery tale was undermined by the video of him gasping for breath on the White House balcony.

Even for Trump, a lover of melodrama and of being the centre of attention as he is, it’s been a tricky week.

It’s certainly not one that has helped his electoral chances, as evidenced by the voting intention data gather by Impact Social, which carries out a weekly tracker of social media sentiment analysis of 40,000 swing voters of every stripe—from the disgruntled supporters of each party to the swingers who will vote but are still deciding. It is the free thinkers like this who will decide an election which has seemed unpredictable, but where a pattern may just be emerging. Impact Social measure two sets of conversations—where Biden is the subject and where Trump is, and track the topics which surround them and the sentiment, positive or negative, around it.

If ubiquity was what he wanted (and it usually is) then Trump’s handling of his own personal health crisis gave him the attention he wants, with a significant increase in the number of conversations around him (up 18 percent), and way more conversations centred about him (139,000 of them), than around Biden (87,000). Although, oddly, it’s a smaller number of people talking about Trump, (28,000 unique authors) than Biden (33,000) which suggests that Trump is also causing a good deal of disquiet amongst those who can’t stop chattering about him, which may be ominous.

The big problem for Trump with voters was that, in catching the illness, he demonstrated exactly what he’d been in denial of for so long. Voters noticed that he’d been denying the pandemic’s seriousness, yet he was helicoptered to the Walter Reed Hospital, he had suggested that wearing a mask wasn’t necessary, yet it cut a swathe through the often mask-free White House staff. He had suggested it was far easier than the flu, but then was reported to have asked if he would die.

That mixed picture was damaging and the White House medical updates caused further doubt and suspicion. The bulletins from the Presidential doctor/osteopath and the obfuscation around whether he’d needed oxygen, the degree of seriousness and the President’s privileged access to experimental drugs all caused issues with voters. It turns out they aren’t keen when they think they’re being lied to. Words like “corrupt,” “lying” and “irresponsible” were repeated loudly and often on social media. That’s not a good look for a President.

It’s not all voters who took that view, there were a significant, but smaller number who were conspicuously keen to talk about something else (’look over there!’), and to praise his apparent defiance of the illness. Yet it feels like a number of plucky followers rather than a serious defense.

Obviously, Joe Biden has had the easier task in all this. Whatever Trump does, don’t do it. Hence his much more cautious approach to COVID-19 and it is paying off. His enthusiasm for restrictions and masks (much mocked by Trump) now appears responsible and almost presidential, just in itself, in contrast to the incumbent. A significant level of the pro-Biden swather of social media was, in fact, centered on “not Trump.”

The issue for Biden is that almost no-one is talking about what he’s for or are even especially enthused by him. Of the conversations which were favorable to him, only 15 percent were actively strongly supportive of the man himself, the rest of the conversations were, in effect, about the conditions around him and how they were enabling his victory, rather than any genuine enthusiasm for a Biden Presidency. That absence of message may yet rebound on him, but, for the moment, a campaign slogan of “I’m not the other guy” may be the truest thing he could do (but I bet he doesn’t.)

One other point in the Biden debit column is that, in the week of the vice-Presidential debates, it’s significant that there remains significant numbers who are openly antagonistic to the black female VP candidate Kamala Harris, for reasons we can only speculate on. The white male Republican candidate Mike Pence barely got a mention, in contrast.

But generally, the omens look good for Biden. If Trump were hoping for sympathy for his illness or his “recovery”, he should look elsewhere as voter sentiment on social media fell from -1 to -21, while Biden’s has improved from underwhelming (-5) to almost whelming (-1).

This all feels like measuring the weakness, rather than the strength of the candidates and in this Battle of the Feeble, Trump has been more significantly damaged this week. The chances are that Biden will keep as steady a hand on the wheel as he can—no sudden moves—in the hope that Trump continues to fall towards his own self-created doom. It’s looking that way for now but there’s still time for surprises.