State-Level Partisan Considerations In Response To The COVID-19 Pandemic

At a time when political partisanship throughout the United States already stands at a high level and only continues to increase, will officials elected to represent and protect their constituents act in what they believe to be the best interests of the people who put them in office or those of their party? To answer this question, I examine a critical element of the response to the novel coronavirus disease. Specifically, I address one of the potential partisan dimensions of the state-by-state response: whether the party of the state governor or legislature had an impact on the timing, degree, or efficacy of response. Using a Cox proportional-hazards model, I find that states controlled by Republican governors are less likely than those controlled by Democratic governors to implement stay-at-home mandates, and that Democratic governors are likely to implement such a mandate more quickly than Republicans.