Baccini Leonardo, Brodeur Abel, Weymouth Stephen
McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
CIREQ, Montreal, Canada.
J Popul Econ. 2021;34(2):739-767. doi: 10.1007/s00148-020-00820-3. Epub 2021 Jan 15.
What is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 US presidential election? Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we estimate the effect of COVID-19 cases and deaths on the change in county-level voting for Donald Trump between 2016 and 2020. To account for potential confounders, we include a large number of COVID-19-related controls as well as demographic and socioeconomic variables. Moreover, we instrument the numbers of cases and deaths with the share of workers employed in meat-processing factories to sharpen our identification strategy. We find that COVID-19 cases negatively affected Trump's vote share. The estimated effect appears strongest in urban counties, in states without stay-at-home orders, in swing states, and in states that Trump won in 2016. A simple counterfactual analysis suggests that Trump would likely have won re-election if COVID-19 cases had been 5 percent lower. We also find some evidence that COVID-19 incidence had a positive effect on voters' mobilization, helping Biden win the presidency.
新冠疫情对2020年美国总统大选有何影响？在一项预分析计划的指导下，我们估算了新冠病例和死亡人数对2016年至2020年县级选区中唐纳德·特朗普选票变化的影响。为了考虑潜在的混杂因素，我们纳入了大量与新冠相关的控制变量以及人口和社会经济变量。此外，我们用肉类加工厂就业工人的比例作为病例数和死亡数的工具变量，以强化我们的识别策略。我们发现，新冠病例对特朗普的选票份额有负面影响。估计效应在城市县、没有居家令的州、摇摆州以及特朗普在2016年获胜的州最为明显。一项简单的反事实分析表明，如果新冠病例数降低5%，特朗普可能会赢得连任。我们还发现一些证据表明，新冠疫情发生率对选民动员有积极影响，助力拜登赢得总统大选。
