Per capita COVID-19 Case Rates are Lower in U.S. Counties Voting more Heavily Democratic in the 2016 Presidential Election, except not in States with a Republican Governor and Legislature

Chambless, L.

In our recent paper "Why do per capita COVID-19 Case Rates Differ Between U.S. States?" we established that U.S. states with a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature have lower COVID-19 per capita case rates than states with a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, and case rates of states with a mixed government fall between the two. This difference remained after accounting for differences between states in several demographic and socio-economic variables. In a recent working paper The Changing Political Geographies of COVID-19 in the U.S. it was found that that early in the pandemic U.S. counties at higher levels of percentage Democratic vote in the 2016 presidential election had higher weekly per capita COVID-19 rates, but that the situation was in the opposite direction by August 2020. We show here that counties with a higher percentage of Democratic vote in the 2016 presidential election have a lower mean cumulative per capita rate of COVID-19 cases and of COVID-19 deaths, adjusted for county demographic and socio-economic characteristics, but only for counties in states that currently have a Democratic governor and both chambers of the legislature Democratic or in states that have a mixed government, but not for states that currently have a Republican governor and both chambers in the legislature Republican. One possible contributor to this difference is that some state Republican governments have restricted local action to fight the spread of COVID-19.