Amid a continuing pandemic and a painful national introspection on race, a volatile American economy is also forcing Donald Trump and Joe Biden to recalibrate how they campaign in 2020’s presidential election.

For Trump, any positive news about the economy needs to be trumpeted. That’s what the president did when the most recent unemployment figures came in surprisingly lower than expected, at 13.3%.

For Biden, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential election, the approach is to remind voters that the soaring unemployment numbers are unacceptably high. Virtually every time he can, Biden looks to link the virus-cratered economy to Trump.

But as with many other things in 2020, there is nothing normal or easy to predict about the US economy as the election unfolds.

Unlike normal recessions, the devastation unleashed on the American jobs market has come about because of deliberate shutdown policies aimed at curbing the pandemic’s spread. That makes blaming Trump for the 40 million plus new jobless Americans a little more difficult.

By the same token, coaxing the economy back into life is not just a matter of trying to stimulate demand or tinkering with interest rates. It is instead deeply entwined with public health policy, where reopening the artificially shut-down economy could cost tens of thousands of US lives.

That situation poses problems for both contenders as they seek to make the economy central to their campaigns.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as the 2008 John McCain campaign’s director of domestic and economic policy, said the challenge for Biden and Trump is different as they seek to persuade voters they have the answers to solve the problems posed by an economic freefall driven by a virus.

“For the Biden campaign, the challenge is to ask themselves every day: ‘OK, what looks presidential in this moment?’” Holtz-Eakin said. “Both have to appear presidential, but Trump in particular has to be a source of trustworthy information.

“People derive great comfort from someone who can tell them what’s happening.”

For Trump, he either needs to communicate a convincing argument to be optimistic that he can lead the economic recovery, or show that Biden is a worse alternative.

A swath of recent polling has shown Biden beating Trump in a general election matchup. But on the economy, Trump is still competitive. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that a plurality of voters still think Trump is preferable on dealing with the economy and cutting the unemployment rate.

Trump has habitually pointed to certain metrics – such as the stock market – to argue that he’s the stronger candidate on the economy. He also likes to say Democrats are the party that wants to raise taxes.

Holtz-Eakin expects Trump to focus more on bashing Biden as the election nears, regardless of how the economy is doing on any particular day.

“I think he’s going to concentrate on the messenger,” Holtz-Eakin said.

In recent days, Biden has tried to multitask in attacking Trump. He and his campaign, publicly and privately, have put a heavy focus on race relations, and the unrest around the police killing of George Floyd. Talking points sent to some Biden surrogates on Monday and obtained by the Guardian did not mention the economy, and instead focused on Floyd.

But Biden’s fundraising schedule this week includes multiple economy-related events, according to invitations obtained by the Guardian.

One fundraiser on Wednesday was labeled a “Virtual Conversation on Rebuilding a Most Resilient Health Economy after Covid-19”. Another fundraiser featured Peter Orszag, the former director for the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration.

In public remarks, Biden has also eagerly pivoted to addressing the economy and laying out his policy platform.

“Trump has loved to crow about the great economy he built. But when the crisis hit, it became clear who that economy has been built to serve. Not workers. Not the middle class. Not families,” Biden said in recent public remarks.

In addressing the economy, Biden often ties it to race relations or the coronavirus. On Thursday, Biden’s campaign released a new factsheet titled “The Biden Plan for an Effective Re-Opening that Jumpstarts the Economy”. The campaign has also set up a secretive group of advisers who have Biden’s ear on economic policy.

The state of the economy isn’t everything in presidential politics ad campaigns. Obama won re-election in the wake of the outbreak of the Great Recession against a candidate with a strong business background.

But amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it casts a long shadow in 2020 and both Democratic and Republican strategists have to deal with it.

Scott Kozar, a veteran Democratic strategist, said that the unemployment rate is something that will continue to matter in the coming months, and is likely to be a problem for Trump because of the sheer scale of the collapse.

“You’re really arguing that 16% unemployment’s good? It’s a bit like arguing only 100,000 people died,” Kozar said. “There is a clear vacuum of leadership.”

Other strategists, though, argue that the state of the economy will be too complicated for just one side to take advantage of.

“I think the campaign that does a better job spinning the economic data, and the campaign that does a better job convincing people that the economy is either roaring back or is stalling out … whichever campaign wins that messaging battle is likely to be in the driver’s seat,” said Republican strategist Todd Harris, who served as a top adviser for the Florida senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“I don’t think there’s going to be enough conclusive economic data one way or the other to have it be a slam dunk win for one side or the other.”

Still, Democrats are optimistic.

“We’re not going to know when the light at the end of the tunnel’s going to come about between now and the election,” the Democratic strategist Aaron Pickrell said.

“It’s still going to be some ebbs and flows, and potentially a good jobs report and things aren’t as bad as they’re going to be one month. But at the end of the day, I have a hard time imagining that voters think the economy is going great and everything is safe by the time we’re voting in November.”