Pandemic Politics: Timing State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19

Christopher Adolph; Kenya Amano; Bree Bang-Jensen; Nancy Fullman; John Wilkerson

The copyright holder for this . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03. 30.20046326 doi: medRxiv preprint partisans of any stripe tend to minimize failures by their own party leaders and exaggerate failures by the opposing party.(34; 35; 36; 37) As a result, Republican voters took COVID-19 less seriously in the early stages of the US pandemic. Indeed, Republican voters were more concerned about Ebola during Obama's presidency than they were about COVID-19 under Trump. (38) Second, all humans have difficulty accurately assessing risks that are small but not zero. (39; 40) In this case, Republican voters were more likely than Democrats to incorrectly assume that the COVID-19 fatality rate and disease burden was effectively the same as the flu.(15) Third, partisans' worldviews are shaped by cues provided by their leaders. (34) In the early stages of the US pandemic, President Trump strongly signaled in press conference and on social media that the coronavirus was an exaggerated threat or even a hoax, a position that was magnified and reinforced by Republican-leaning media outlets. Finally, Republican officials almost surely considered the possibility of reprisals -both to their political careers and discretionary federal assistance to their states -from a president who frequently attacks members of his own party that he perceives to be disloyal. (41; 42; 43) To be clear, we are not arguing that politics was the sole motivation behind governors' social distancing decisions: our results suggest otherwise. However, we do believe that the political headwinds were significantly greater for Republican Governors in Republican leaning states.