For nearly two months, Donald Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat—in part, it seems, because he was concerned that the public health crisis could hurt his reelection bid. Of course, his mishandlingof the pandemic—and damage to the economy—has done precisely that, shining the brightest and most unflattering light possible on his unfitness for his job.

But amid the chaos and fear of the COVID-19 crisis, an additional worry has begun to emerge—that Trump could use the pandemic to tighten his grip on power. Concerns that Trump could use coronavirus as an excuse to postpone the November election have been raised in recent days. But on Wednesday, those fears found their most prominent voice yet in Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Speaking to reporters, Brown expressed concern that Trump could use his state’s decision this week to postpone its Democratic primary election as justification to do the same with the general election later this year. “My concern is that in the age of Trump that other governors might think, or that the president might ask, for a delay in the November election based on something, perhaps this, perhaps something else,” Brown said. “We can’t let this be a precedent.”

Ohio Governor Jim DeWine and Health Director Dr. Amy Acton on Monday pushed back the state’s primary, set for the next day, over safety concerns because of coronavirus. While the Republican governor has generally been praised for his response to the crisis, including by Brown, the move was met with lawsuits and criticism from some observers. “Ohio’s action sets a dangerous precedent,” Jennifer Rubin wrote in the Washington Post. “Especially in the age of Trump, when so many norms and institutions have been under attack, the primacy of timely, regular elections must be preserved.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, “legal scholars are widely in agreement” that Trump does not have the power to delay a presidential election due to a national emergency. “The 20th Amendment says if we have not chosen a president by a certain date, it goes to succession,” Rick Hasen, an election law scholar at UC Irvine, told the paper. “It’s not like a delay would keep Trump in office longer.”

Trump himself has not publicly proposed any modifications to November’s elections during the coronavirus crisis, and suggested the state should have gone ahead with its vote. “I just think an election is a very special thing,” he said of the move. But the president also implied he supported DeWine’s decision. “I could understand that,” he said. That difficulty in pinning down Trump’s position, along with his disregard for democratic norms, may heighten concerns about what he’ll do once his political survival instincts kick in during the general election.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

— How coronavirus is creating a fake-news nightmarescape

— Why do Dubai’s princesses keep trying to escape?

— Is Karen Pence’s transformation a play for 2024?

— A Nassim Taleb protégé has tips on how to prepare for the coming market crash

— Health officials and scientists are now banned from speaking about coronavirus

— This is how Matt Gaetz became Trump’s ultimate protégé

— From the Archive: Inside Stephen Glass’s web of deception that emerged as the most sustained fraud in modern journalism

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.