The Political Coronavirus Paradox: Where The Virus Was Worst, Voters Supported Trump the Most

We will never know whether President Donald Trump could have won reelection if a novel coronavirus hadn’t torn across the planet in the final year of his presidency, just as the months-long impeachment saga was drawing to a close. (Did you remember that Trump was impeached?) There’s a strong argument that the President’s delayed response and mishandling of the pandemic was the one thing during campaign season that no amount of his trademark misdirection could deflect. But while early indications suggest that the deadly disease was the most driving factor among those who voted for President-elect Joseph Biden, while the moribund economy it spurred was of most concern to the outing President’s supporters, there lies a strange conundrum here: The regions of the country that Trump carried have also been those most plagued by COVID-19 since late August, according to TIME’s analysis of Associated Press voting results by county and the local rates of COVID-19 since March. On Nov. 3, the day of the election, the counties that broke for Trump had a collective rate of 38 new infections a day per 100,000 people, compared to 27 in those that supported Biden. A week out from the election, we have fairly complete data on returns in almost all of the 3,141 counties and county equivalents. At present, Biden has won 491 counties to Trump’s 2,544, which will shift marginally when the last few counties come in. This is a typically lopsided count that means ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news