Assuming that older people vote more conservatively, are more susceptible to COVID deaths, and that red unmasked states are seeing more and more cases per capita, is there a statistical chance that an increased coronavirus spread could sufficiently change the electorate by November?
I doubt it. First of all, it isn’t that many deaths in absolute terms – 175,000 so far in a country with a population of 330 million – and secondly, while it’s true that old people are disproportionately likely to die, so are people who are black, Hispanic, and / or living in densely populated urban areas, none of which are big Republican voting blocs. (There are a lot of blue voters in “red” states, and many of them are old, too.)
And don’t forget, even without COVID, old people are disproportionately likely to die. Eventually, folks in the current old cohort will die off (and eventually, the cohort after them, and so on).
Looking at the 2016 election, it looks like the states with the closest ratio of deaths vs. margin of victory (for either candidate) is Michigan with 6592 deaths vs a vote difference of 10704. So even if we did the 2016 election all over again with everyone voting exactly the same AND we assume everyone who died in Michigan was a Trump voter, it still wouldn’t swing the election.