The Party-Line Pandemic: A Closer Look at the Partisan Response to COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has shown that even a serious public health crisis cannot escape the lens of partisanship. The literature shows that most Republicans have viewed the coronavirus as less serious than their Democratic counterparts. This study demonstrates that this partisan gap extends to the real behavior of the public during, and after, the coronavirus state lockdowns. Using location data from mobile phones, we find that county-level partisanship predicts compliance with state shutdown orders, even when controlling for local COVID-19 intensity. Further, the magnitude of this effect is stronger than that of other explanatory variables, such as age, education, and population density. These results show that partisan beliefs can affect behavior regarding issues that are not overtly political, even behaviors that could put one or others at risk.