How will the Covid-19 pandemic affect the 2020 election in the United States? I’m certainly not the first person to ask this question. It’s hard not to view President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis in light of his reelection bid. The judicial rulings that forced Wisconsin to hold in-person elections in April as the rest of the nation was in lockdown brought national attention to the dangers and difficulties of conducting an election while maintaining social distancing. Recently, experts have begun to sound warning bells about the capacity of the United States to implement voting-by-mail at a larger scale in time for November. All of these considerations are critically important, but another political dimension of this crisis has attracted comparatively little attention: How will the virus and accompanying economic collapse affect individual citizens? Even if logistical and safety concerns are resolved in time for the election, who will be able and inclined to vote?

The fundamental question here is how potential voters respond to crisis and disruption. Are they spurred to act, be it out of anger or a desire to fix the problem? Or are they too preoccupied keeping their lives together to engage in politics? Recent social science research, detailed below, suggests that both dynamics are in play. While it’s impossible to predict the impact of the pandemic on voting in November with any certainty, I tentatively lay out a plausible scenario: Mobilization among those who are angry and able, accompanied by disengagement and disenfranchisement among those who are most grievously affected.

How do voters react to crisis?

“It would seem that when Americans’ lives are disrupted by crisis, they are mobilized to turn out and punish incumbents or the party in power.”

An angry public is bad news for an incumbent leader facing reelection. Elections often end up as referenda on incumbent politicians or parties in power, and a major crisis on their watch does not bode well for their chances, particularly if the public believes the government mishandled the crisis or is responsible for it in the first place. This dynamic is especially apparent for economic crisis. Presidents Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush all saw their reelection hopes dashed by economic woes. A housing crisis and major recession made second-term President George W. Bush, a Republican, so unpopular that his party, including presidential nominee John McCain, were crushed at the polls in 2008.1Larry M. Bartels, “Political Effects of the Great Recession” (working paper, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Vanderbilt University, 2013). It would seem that when Americans’ lives are disrupted by crisis, they are mobilized to turn out and punish incumbents or the party in power.

Or are they? Recent research on the housing crisis and the 2008 election suggests that the story isn’t so simple. To be sure, 2008 was a high-turnout election that was bruising for the incumbent president’s party, and the economy had a lot to do with it. But a number of studies demonstrate that those hit worst by the recession—those who lost their homes to foreclosure or saw their home values plummet—were less likely to vote rather than more.2→Paru Shah and Amber Wichowsky, “Foreclosure’s Fallout: Economic Adversity and Voter Turnout,” Political Behavior 41 no. 4 (2019): 1099–1115.
→Andrew B. Hall, Jesse Yoder, and Nishant Karandikar, “Economic Distress and Voting: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” SocArXiv, April 13, 2017.
→W. Ben McCartney, “Does Household Finance Affect the Political Process? Evidence from Voter Turnout During a Housing Crisis,” Review of Financial Studies, May 27, 2020.
The public at large may have turned out to punish Republicans, but not necessarily because they were personally devastated by the recession.

“Events like divorce, widowhood, teen pregnancy, and loss of public health coverage have all been found to reduce political participation.”

As it turns out, there is mounting evidence that when bad things happen to people, they tend to participate less, rather than more, in politics. This extends beyond economic downturns; events like divorce, widowhood, teen pregnancy, and loss of public health coverage have all been found to reduce political participation.3→Julianna Sandell Pacheco and Eric Plutzer, “Stay in School, Don’t Become a Parent,” American Politics Research 35, no. 1 (2007): 32–56.
→William R. Hobbs, Nicholas A. Christakis, and James H. Fowler, “Widowhood Effects in Voter Participation,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 1 (2014): 1-16.
→Jake Haselswerdt and Jamila Michener, “Disenrolled: Retrenchment and Voting in Health Policy,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 44 no. 3 (2019): 423-454.
Until recently, researchers working on these issues have considered the political implications of these different types of events separately. In a new working paper, Christopher Ojeda, Jamila Michener, and I consider “personal crisis,” which encompasses any sort of event that disrupts someone’s life, as an important political phenomenon.4Christopher Ojeda, Jamila Michener, and Jake Haselswerdt, “The Politics of Personal Crisis: How Negative Life Events Affect Political Participation,” (working paper, April 11, 2020). Across several different high-quality data sources, we document a general pattern of reduced participation among people who experience many different kinds of crises, particularly if they experience multiple such events in a year.

Why does crisis tend to demobilize rather than mobilize citizens? We argue in our paper that people in crisis have to divert resources (money, time, energy, mental bandwidth) that they might have used for political participation toward more basic needs. Someone going through divorce, foreclosure, or loss of health insurance has enough to worry about simply keeping their life together, and is unlikely to find the time or wherewithal to pay close attention to elections or the bureaucratic processes (such as registration) required to vote in most states.

How the pandemic will affect voters

If disrupted lives mean disrupted political participation, the consequences of Covid-19 for democratic citizenship could be dire. First, the virus is expected to have a very direct impact. Tens of thousands of people who would otherwise have voted in November will not live to do so, and some number of others will be too seriously ill at the time of the election to participate. The impacts don’t stop there, however. Even people who are physically able to vote could be discouraged from doing so through the virus’ many other effects on Americans’ lives. These effects include loss of employment, loss of health insurance, unforeseen medical expenses, emergency room and hospital visits, widowhood, and lockdown-related mental health issues, to name a few. If past experience is any guide, people dealing with these crises will probably have limited energy left over for politics.

What does all of this mean for Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and their copartisans down the ballot? Will the crisis disadvantage one side more than the other? It’s difficult to say. Trump and his fellow Republicans draw their strongest support from Americans age 65 and above, the same age group suffering the highest fatality rate and facing the greatest risk from the virus. People around retirement age may also be especially hard hit by the ailing stock market. But the pandemic also hits key Democratic voting groups particularly hard. Communities of color have some of the highest rates of infection and death from the virus, and the economic devastation of the social distancing era has been especially pronounced for young and low-income workers, as well as those in the service industry.

Regardless of the partisan tendency of these demobilizing forces, we should not overlook the very real possibility of a backlash against Trump and fellow Republicans, which could overwhelm any negative turnout effects, as in 2008. Recent polling suggests that while Trump enjoyed a small boost in popularity early in the crisis, Americans may be souring on his handling of the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether these trends will continue, and whether they are enough to drive a high-turnout backlash in November.

Election administration challenges and voters in crisis

“In many places in the United States, bureaucracy (e.g., registration, re-registration, or obtaining an absentee ballot) is a major barrier to voting.”

These individual-level concerns have implications for the administration of elections. While Americans have some specific voting rights and protections enshrined in amendments to the Constitution and in federal legislation like the Voting Rights Act, election administration is the responsibility of state and county governments, and policies vary widely in ways that are consequential for participation. In many places in the United States, bureaucracy (e.g., registration, re-registration, or obtaining an absentee ballot) is a major barrier to voting. While in most peer nations, the government itself takes on the responsibility for maintaining voter lists, in most US states, the onus is on the individual to register and re-register as necessary (far in advance of election day in some cases), and to take the initiative in obtaining an absentee ballot should they need one.

As a result, the costs of voting in terms of time and mental bandwidth are much higher in these states than others, which accounts for part of the gap in participation between the United States and most peer nations. Some states, recognizing these concerns, have begun to take steps to reduce bureaucratic barriers to voting through measures like automatic voter registration and “no-excuse” absentee balloting. Such administrative policies have a direct bearing on the present question. In places where states make potential voters wade through a mass of red tape, people whose lives have been disrupted by the virus and lockdown will be even less likely to participate, since they are less able to spare the needed resources. By contrast, states that take proactive steps to ease voting (and absentee voting in particular) may be able to blunt the impact of the crisis on participation.

Conclusion

While there is no precedent for the Covid-19 pandemic in living memory, recent research does suggest some plausible expectations for the 2020 election. Since the virus has greatly increased the number of Americans dealing with personal crises, medical or otherwise, it has the potential to disrupt political participation in a significant way. The United States’ uniquely cumbersome and decentralized process of registration and voting is likely to make the situation worse. At the same time, the virus and the government’s handling of the crisis are themselves political issues that may motivate many Americans to engage in politics, and in some states public health concerns are already serving as an impetus to make voting easier. Policymakers, concerned citizens, and scholars should consider all of these factors when assessing the impact of the virus on the political process, with an eye toward ensuring that Americans in crisis are able to exercise their political voice in the future.

Banner photo credit: Wisconsin National Guard/Flickr

References:

1
Larry M. Bartels, “Political Effects of the Great Recession” (working paper, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Vanderbilt University, 2013).
2
→Paru Shah and Amber Wichowsky, “Foreclosure’s Fallout: Economic Adversity and Voter Turnout,” Political Behavior 41 no. 4 (2019): 1099–1115.
→Andrew B. Hall, Jesse Yoder, and Nishant Karandikar, “Economic Distress and Voting: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” SocArXiv, April 13, 2017.
→W. Ben McCartney, “Does Household Finance Affect the Political Process? Evidence from Voter Turnout During a Housing Crisis,” Review of Financial Studies, May 27, 2020.
3
→Julianna Sandell Pacheco and Eric Plutzer, “Stay in School, Don’t Become a Parent,” American Politics Research 35, no. 1 (2007): 32–56.
→William R. Hobbs, Nicholas A. Christakis, and James H. Fowler, “Widowhood Effects in Voter Participation,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 1 (2014): 1-16.
→Jake Haselswerdt and Jamila Michener, “Disenrolled: Retrenchment and Voting in Health Policy,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 44 no. 3 (2019): 423-454.
4
Christopher Ojeda, Jamila Michener, and Jake Haselswerdt, “The Politics of Personal Crisis: How Negative Life Events Affect Political Participation,” (working paper, April 11, 2020).