Will COVID death rates of Republicans have a significant impact on the outcome of the presidential election?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

A study was conducted that revealed that once a COVID vaccine was available, Republicans were more likely to die than Democrats:

Republicans’ excess death rate spiked after COVID-19 vaccines arrived, a study says

Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats.”

Do you think this will have a significant impact on the election results in states like Ohio and Florida?

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Sundial@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It did in the 2022 midterms.

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- grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Interesting! Thanks for the link!
  
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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
COVID has already had an impact on the election. The census date was April 1, 2020. In March of 2020, COVID had started to severely hit NYC but was only ramping up in other areas. NY ended up losing a congressional seat in that census, by only 89 people. There’s no doubt that COVID’s timing screwed up NY State’s congressional map, and contributed to the slim Republican majority in this year’s census.

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- doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Yikes. We’re all thinking about how covid disproportionately affects the elderly, but it also disproportionately affects people who live in denser population centers.
  
  I don’t like talking about pandemics in terms of which political party they help, but I guess the dems may have been hit harder in the end…
  
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  - spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’m too lazy to look this up, but I believe death rates were higher out of cities vs in cities. Half the reason hospitals were packed in cities is because rural people went where the ventilators were. Everywhere had all the covid waves, they just hit cities first.
    
    Elderly tend to be more R, and D folks were more likely to mask and vaccinate. But elderly vaccinated pretty well across the board and the divide was bigger in the young. Lots of factors, but my money is on D making out slightly better as a broad cohort. Tragic all around though.
    
    Ok I did some searching and excess mortality points to higher rural impact, but official cause of death data is mixed (too lazy to link though).
    
    …upenn.edu/…/penn-sas-comparing-urban-and-rural-e…
    
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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Not enough for comfort.

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Badeendje@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
The vote difference in Georgia was less than 12K votes…

I’m betting more that the excess mortality of republicans was easily 12k more than democrat excess deaths during Covid… The more hardline/republiQan/Nuts, the more anti-mask and prone to risky behavior during the pandemic, the more excess deaths… especially at the beginning with the OG (die-in-the-intensive-care-hooked-up-to-a-vebtilator) variant.

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jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It could, I mean, we don’t know the politics of the covid dead, but look at the numbers:

Pennsylvania:

…wikipedia.org/…/2016_United_States_presidential_…

Trump - 2,970,733
Clinton - 2,926,441
Difference: 44,292
Covid deaths: 51,344
Source: usafacts.org/visualizations/…/pennsylvania/

Michigan:

…wikipedia.org/…/2016_United_States_presidential_…

Trump - 2,279,543
Clinton - 2,268,839
Difference: 10,704
Covid deaths: 44,728
Source: www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/stats

Wisconsin:

…wikipedia.org/…/2016_United_States_presidential_…

Trump - 1,405,284
Clinton - 1,382,536
Difference: 22,748
Covid deaths: 16,723
Source: usafacts.org/visualizations/…/wisconsin/

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GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I think the pandemic will definitely have an effect. If I recall correctly, Fox News changed gears and started promoting the vaccine after realizing that their base was dying at a faster rate than Democrats.

It could have been a co tributing factor to Georgia voting for Biden in 2020 and could be a reason why Biden was closer to winning TX than Hillary was.

Florida is hard to say, because a lot of retirees move there. So while the Republicans there may have been hit harder during covid, those may have been replaced with more Republicans moving in to retire in the sun.

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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- scytale@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  OP’s question is if the number of republicans who died from covid would affect their voting numbers, not about the quality of the people running or if the people who vote for them care.
  
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  - FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Fair point. I’ll delete my comment.
    
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Coreidan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
That depends. How many democrats died during Covid?

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