The continuing coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide public protests against the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis are overshadowing the stalled 2020 presidential campaign.

Yet the relevant positions of President Donald Trump and prospective Democratic nominee Joe Biden on the two issues likely will be critical barometers of the contest between them in the political discourse and debate for weeks to come.

Trump’s initial response to the protests was a tweet telling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that “the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control … when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Biden, by contrast, urged the protesters “to exercise their rights peacefully and safely,” while adding that “people all across the country are enraged and rightly so. Every day African Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma of wondering ‘Will I be next?’ “

Trump also told Democratic governors to “get tough” and call in the National Guard, adding: “The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe” — his favorite taunt of Biden.

But Democrats are cautiously optimistic that Trump’s bungling of the virus crisis will be his undoing by Election Day, along with his dismissal of health experts’ warning that the coronavirus peril could return with a vengeance this summer and fall.

They also hope to capitalize now on his cavalier threats to unleash the nation’s military to suppress the public protest turned violent over the police brutality captured on video that cost George Floyd his life.

On the other hand, many Republicans and other conservatives entertain the possibility that Trump’s faithful voters will be buoyed by his tough law-and-order talk, coupled with his efforts to reopen the national economy after months of shelter-in-place orders.

Trump’s incumbency, a huge advantage in organizing and fundraising for the fall re-election effort, all gave the president a significant head start over Biden in the 2020 race. But the former vice president recovered from a dismal primary campaign to the cusp of the Democratic nomination, and he leads now over Trump in most prominent public-opinion polls.

The coronavirus pandemic has frozen the presidential campaign and diminished the usual election-year public focus on politics. Rushing into the void has been the latest racial turmoil over police brutality that has spread from Minneapolis to other major cities across the country,

Trump, seizing the old Nixonian law-and-order rhetoric, has called for swift and brutal suppression of street violence. Civil-rights advocates, meanwhile, demand justice against the cop who choked the life out of Floyd. At the same time, the American press howls at open violations of First Amendment guarantees in the arrest of CNN reporters and crew members in Minneapolis.

Virtually overnight, these calamitous events have come to dominate not only the nation’s newspaper headlines and television bulletins but also the choice the American electorate must make only five months from now.

Accordingly, Trump continues to rely on distracting the public from his mismanagement and doubling down on the social and racial divisiveness he has sewn in his first term, in hope of winning a second one. Instead, these tactics may only undercut him when the campaign is able to resume in full swing.

Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power.” You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.