At the moment, about 180k Americans have died from Covid-19 and we’re losing about 1000 per day and, I suspect, this rate will be fairly constant over the next two months so we should expect about 60k more between now and election day. In total, we’re looking at 240k deaths.
Now let’s say that your average person has six other people who they are genuinely close to (direct relatives and best friends). The total number of voters who will be affected by a death are, thus, somewhat less than 1.4m (due to the possibility for overlap). This is to say, less than 0.48% of voters will be affected. For everyone else, Covid-19 is something more like a monster under the bed than a real threat. Like, maybe I should keep the lights on at night, in the hallway, but I don’t feel like I need to call 911 nor install a security alarm.
That’s the simple case.
But now let’s say that your average partisan will not change their politics, just because Grandma died. Realistically, you’re talking about 10-15% of people who are willing to revise their choice, as information comes in. So, the actual amount that these deaths could move the people is 15% of that 0.48%, or 0.072%.
That is simply not a large enough number to affect anything.
You can blame Trump for a few hundred thousand deaths, all day every day, and for a while the shock value of a “big number” will move the masses. But after living with Covid-19 for most of a year and never knowing any real dead persons, it’s real easy for people to view those numbers as being about as meaningful as a drought in Cambodia. It’s just not going to move the needle at all.
Normally Democrats and Republicans vote by mail in similar numbers. However more people will vote by mail this year due to COVID-19. Democrats are fear the virus than Republicans, so anything interfering with their voting by mail would reduce the Democratic vote more than the Republican vote. (Note that elderly people, who are more likely to vote Republican, also fear the virus more, so interfering with the mail-in vote will disenfranchise some Republican voters too.)
The virus forced governors to shut down businesses and schools. There’s a huge push to open schools, even among many left-wing politicians, but most times that has happened, schools had to shut down again due to infection spikes. Parents are forced to stay home and homeschool their kids, which means they aren’t working. This is disruptive and financially costly. This will absolutely affect many people.
I spoke to a business owner today who was happy that his business has been allowed to reopen, and lots of customers desperate for his service have inundated him with requests. Unfortunately he has to reduce the number of people coming into his office (so leaving money on the table, so to speak) to keep things safe. He’s in the medical field and demonstrated good knowledge of COVID-19. He had been shut down for ten weeks, so his employees had to be laid off for that period.
Today I also missed out on a cultural event: I had to buy tickets for an hour-long period, and no slots were available today. In normal times only the fire codes would have kept the number of people down, and people could literally walk in off the street provided they paid and the place wasn’t overcrowded. I was happy to see they were getting the maximum amount of business allowed, but that’s less business than they would have otherwise seen. I was able to attend another event with the same restrictions, but it wasn’t as popular so I was able to attend. This is definitely a first world problem but it still affected me.
If Grandma died of preventable causes, perhaps because idiots didn’t wear masks or she was convinced that COVID-19 is a scam, other family members may be enraged and change their vote.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s COVID-19 response and 55 percent say they think the worst is yet to come in the pandemic. People who know someone who’s contracted the virus had increased from 40 percent from a CNN poll in June to 67 percent.
Trump’s disapproval rate was 56% in the CNN poll from early June.
The new poll was conducted from Aug. 12-15 with a sample size of 1,108 respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
About 8 in 10 Americans say they are angry with how the country is going and 68 percent say they are embarrassed by the way the U.S. has responded to the pandemic, according to the poll.
I’m reading the OP bemused. You’re really saying that you think COVID has no impact unless you personally know someone who has died? That’s just an utterly bizarre perspective when everyone’s life has been turned upside down for months.
There are way more than 6 people whose deaths would deeply affect me. At least 60. Especially if you factor in Facebook: seeing old coworkers you liked, old friends, mentors. That’s a lot.
BTW, even with the suspected low balled numbers -thanks to the Trump administration meddling too no less-, an ugly, tone deaf talking point made by Trump a few months ago, that demonstrates Trump’s incompetence, will be ready to be tossed back at his face soon.
“It’s a horrible number,” Trump said, but "if we have between 100,000 and 200,000 (deaths), we all together have done a very good job.”
This month we will get over 200,000. That will lowerTrump’s election chances in November.
One, you’ve not lived with a kid scared of the monster under their bed have you? If only a security alarm would be enough to reassure. Personally knowing a person who has died or not the fear experienced by many is dramatic. Many are directly impacted in ways beyond mourning a death, or being ill themselves, or having a loved one seriously ill. They are new parents keeping grandparents away (never mind if that is rational, it doesn’t matter), adult children unable to visit their parent isolated, whether they are at a nursing home or just in another state, they are trapped at home.
Will that impact any subgroup’s turnout one way or the other? Convince any voters to swing away or any previously swung to stay?
Does it convince anyone who didn’t already know that Trump is not up for the job?
Some I think. More than your formula would capture.
Every parent in the US is deeply affected, and your model doesn’t take that into account. IMHO every parental voter is at risk of voting out Trump.
If there had been a President that wore a mask, washed hands and took the lockdown seriously, then we could be like China, which has pretty much returned to normal. Schools are back in session without masks in the epicenter of Wuhan. Instead, we lead the world in cases and deaths. Go USA.
There was no pandemic, this time, last year nor the year before that. Trump’s poll numbers were the same then as now. Which makes no sense, given his polling on the pandemic, unless…
Let’s say that you and I both enter an elevator with Brian. Brian’s this great guy, buys everyone beers every time we all go out together, tells great jokes, upstanding as anything, saved a child from a burning building last week. That being as it may, the instant we get on and the door closes, he lets out a giant, nose melting fart.
Review on Brian, overall: A+
Review on Brian’s elevator etiquette: D
Yeah, he let us down in that one instance. But, ultimately, the elevator incident just doesn’t rank versus saving a kid’s life and beer.
Wrong already, when the pandemic started Trump got the best polling; still though ,that was for approval rating, what was expected when there is a rallying cry to get all together to confront a crises. Unfortunately for Trump, even then, Biden was ahead by 5 points on the presidential polling. Right now Biden is ahead by 7 points according to Fivethirtyeight.com
One problem is that you say the average person is only close to 6 other people. That seems wrong. I’m a huge introvert, and yet I can easily count about 20 people whose deaths would be devastating to me.
Oh yes, and the other thing: There’s no school! Which strongly affects my life every single day.
