Study: Elderly Trump voters dying of coronavirus could cost him in November

Source: Politico | April 23, 2020 | Christopher Cadelago

An academic journal projects that deaths of 65-and-over Republican voters in several swing states will far exceed those of Democrats.

Mass casualties from the coronavirus could upend the political landscape in battleground states and shift contests away from President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis.

Academic researchers writing in a little-noticed public administration journal — Administrative Theory & Praxis — conclude that when considering nothing other than the tens of thousands of deaths projected from the virus, demographic shifts alone could be enough to swing crucial states to Joe Biden in the fall.

“The pandemic is going to take a greater toll on the conservative electorate leading into this election — and that’s simply just a calculation of age,” Andrew Johnson, the lead author and a professor of management at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said in an interview. “The virus is killing more older voters, and in many states that’s the key to a GOP victory.”

Johnson and his colleagues Wendi Pollock and Beth M. Rauhaus projected that even with shelter-in-place orders remaining in effect, about 11,000 more Republicans than Democrats who are 65 and older could die before the election in both Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, should the state return to using only social distancing to fight infections, it could lose over 13,000 more Republican than Democratic voters in that age category.

The study is based on early fatality projections from CovidActNow.org that are orders of magnitude higher than what’s borne out so far in battleground states — a point some outside experts have seized on to inject a dose of skepticism in the study’s findings. In an interview, Johnson acknowledged the high numbers used for the study, but he contended it remains early and that easing of stay-at-home orders could spark more cases and deaths.

Bill Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar on governance, said the effects are only large enough to affect outcomes in states that are very narrowly divided. But he concluded that the study made sense.

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