Coronavirus and American Elections: A Story of Polarization
Javier Padilla and Belén Hípola
In recent years, political scientists and commentators have been concerned about increased levels of “affective political polarization” within the United States. This phenomenon refers to Americans’ distrust and dislike of voters and leaders from the opposing party. Scholar Lilliana Mason found that this type of identity-based polarization has increased more than issue-based polarization. This finding aligns with what researchers have observed in other countries like Spain, where Luis Miller has argued that affective polarization is higher than political polarization resulting from public policy disagreements. Other authors have argued, however, that issue and affective polarization have increased simultaneously. In any case, affective polarization may have detrimental effects on democracies, as it can reduce the possibilities to reach an agreement between the parties and citizens in peaceful coexistence.
As the still unfolding U.S. election shows, Americans are so strongly divided along partisan lines that they even disagree on basic democratic issues, including their degree of trust in different experts, whether mail-in voting is acceptable, and the health measures that individuals may or may not take to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Affective polarization and Covid-19
Most studies suggest that affective polarization influences the measures taken for Covid-19. For example, Lipsitz and Pop-Eleches have found that the mobility in Democratic counties was more reduced than in Republican ones. The authors argue that due to the increased levels of affective polarization, Republican leaders are more likely to not trust scientific authorities. Additional studies have linked citizen’s behavior during the outbreak of Covid-19 with their political preferences. The political polarization of the pandemic has also occurred in countries such as Spain but has not been the general rule in other European countries such as Germany, for example. This suggests that existing levels of polarization could have influenced how the threat of Covid-19 pandemic was differently perceived by voters of opposite political parties.
Current levels of affective polarization compel American voters to distrust the leaders from the other party with respect to Covid-19, according to data extracted from the September 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey. In figure 1, it can be seen how the levels of trust for President-elect Joseph Biden and President Donald Trump regarding the information they provide on coronavirus drastically changes between Democrats and Republicans.
While more than 75% of the Democrats have the lowest possible level of trust for what Trump declares on coronavirus and more than 90% have low levels of trust for him, the opposite situation (although slightly more attenuated) happens between Republicans and Biden. Although problematic, these results could be expected due to the increased levels of affective polarization in the last years.
Voters think differently of the experts depending on their partisanship. As British conservative Michael Gove, who famously stated that “People in this country have had enough of experts” while campaigning for Brexit, Republican leaders have said similar statements during the coronavirus crisis. For example, regarding Dr. Fauci, who has worked with both Democrats and Republicans administration, Trump recently said that “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.” The President of the United States has also accused Dr. Fauci of being a “Democrat” without any empirical ground and said that he is a “disaster.” Concerning Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator appointed by the Republicans, both parties have criticized her at some point. In the Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi has said about Dr. Birx: “I think the president is spreading disinformation about the virus and she is his appointee, so I do not have confidence there, no.” Although with less intensity, Trump also criticized her. Even the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — a nonpartisan governmental entity — has been subject to controversy at some point during the coronavirus crisis.
In figure 2, with data from the September 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, we can see how Americans’ trust of experts on coronavirus depends on their party choice. Almost 75% of the Democrats fully trust Dr. Fauci, while the level of trust by Republicans is substantively lower. In the case of the CDC, Democrats have a higher level of trust in the institution.
Covid-19 and the American Elections
It is not easy to discern whether the (mis)management of the COVID-19 pandemic was decisive in these elections. Democrats and Republicans do not seem to agree on even what was the most important issue that informed their votes.
In the middle of the pandemic, Republicans have declared that the economy is the most important political issue followed by criminal justice and policing. Meanwhile, Democrats have declared that the most important issues are the coronavirus outbreak together with race relations and the healthcare system. In figure 3, with data from the September 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, these vast differences between the most important political issues are readily apparent.
Americans are not only deeply divided about how they perceive political issues and parties, but also on the saliency of policy issues. This can be fundamental to understanding why some citizens, even if they think that the Trump administration did not do an acceptable job handling the coronavirus, may have decided to vote for the Republican party if they considered that it would manage the economy better. Moreover, the common perception among Republicans about the lack of importance of the coronavirus outbreak aligns with Trump’s recent performances after testing positive for the illness. The careless behavior of Trump regarding wearing a mask is consistent with the ideas of a portion of the Republican electorate, who thinks that mask wearing is not important to preventing the spread of coronavirus, as figure 4 shows.
Americans faced an important decision about how to grapple with urgent challenges this election season. However, although the election of Joseph Biden may improve the situation, it is likely that the levels of polarization, misinformation, and distrust of experts will remain closely associated to partisanship and create challenges to any possible measure taken by the Democrats.
Javier Padilla is a PhD student in political science at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He holds a master’s degree in philosophy and public policy at the London School of Economics. His research is focused on electoral behavior, public opinion, and the European political space. He won the 2019 Comillas Award for his book A finales de enero.
