One of the burning questions on many Americans’ minds during the global pandemic we’re all living through is: What effect will these events have on the reelection of President Donald Trump?

While Trump’s approval rating has inched up during the Covid-19 outbreak, a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the crisis. Given his initial reluctance to acknowledge the severity of the problem, the administration’s testing debacle, and his daily errors and misstatements at his news briefings, many voters might assume that Trump’s chances of winning this fall are dwindling.

But a widely studied psychological phenomenon suggests the opposite: that, with the grimness of death hanging in the air, anxious Americans might actually be more likely to support Trump in November because of his dominant leadership style and his claims of offering protection.