Of all 50 of the US states, which ones have governors that are doing the best to handle the COVID 19 crisis? Which ones are doing the most poorly?
Obviously, different states have different challenges. Some were hit hard early on, some have older populations, or more foreign tourists, but are there any standouts for all the right (and wrong) reasons?
My governor Jay Inslee has been the kind of leader I want. I’m very impressed. I haven’t agreed with everything he’s done or hasn’t done, but overall, he’s been phenomenal. I look at a state like Florida and feel pretty lucky. I’m also grateful for the other west coast governors, Gavin Newsom of California and Kate Brown of Oregon.
Anecdotally, I’ve been hearing that Charlie Baker (R-Massachusetts,) governor, has been doing a pretty good job. I don’t live in Mass so I can’t comment firsthand but he has gotten praise. Apparently, taking all kinds of proactive measures and also making sure everyone understands which facility is where and doing what.
My guy, Newsom, for the timely response and Cuomo for getting seriously into certain people’s faces.
I’d give Cuomo a good grade on the handling of the coronavirus overall, but what mars it is the fact that he’s done some political self-serving opportunistic shit that I don’t at all appreciate.
Backstory first: Andy Cuomo got seriously pissed at a small NY party called the Working Families Party. They are a party that tends to endorse the Democratic candidate in races where they don’t field any candidate of their own, and they seldom do field a Working-Families-only candidate for elections. Their purpose in life is to dangle the possibility of their endorsement as leverage to get the mainstream progressive folks to embrace one or more of their issues; to pull the Democratic Party to the left. Why’d Cuomo get pissed? Because in the gubernatorial primary, the Working Families Party deigned to endorse his rival.
In retaliation, circa late last fall / earlly this spring, Cuomo had his pals in the legislature — who were convening a campaign finance reform committee — stack that committee with some folks who then, in a move completely outside the scope of the committee’s intended authority, raised the number of votes necessary to place a given party on the ballot by a factor of three and furthermore indexed the requirement NOT just to the gubernatorial contest as it had previously been, but to the US presidential race as well.
Then the committee released its recommendations at a time when the legislature was not in session, so that the recommendations would become state policy without legislative discussion and debate, and would thus throttle all 3rd party politics in New York.
(For awhile it briefly looked like the committee’s way of going at the Working Families Party was to take the form of removing fusion, so that parties such as the Working Families Party could no longer cross-endorse. But instead they went for an option that would also destroy parties such as the Libertarians and the Greens who tend to field their own candidates.)
The Libertarians and some other parties took it to court and the courts said “nope, you can’t do that” and the measure was junked.
But under the shroud of COVID-19, Cuomo had it inserted into the emergency budget and the NY Assemble and Senate were particpating remotely and under duress of needing to enact necessary emergency provisions, and so once again third parties in the state of New York are being quietly eviscerated.
So I’m somewhat limited in the extent to which I’m inclined to applaud Andrew Cuomo.
I’m very pleased with Gov Asa Hutchinson. He was in Homeland Security during SARS. That experience has been extremely helpful dealing with Coronavirus.
Arkansas has 1695 cases and 37 deaths. The states around us have much higher numbers. Louisiana has 21,518 and 1,013 deaths. Missouri has 4,686 and 133 deaths.
I’m so grateful and thankful that Arkansas’s containment measures are working. Hutchinson reacted pretty quickly to the pandemic and it’s saved lives. Perhaps my mom and other relatives. Heck this virus could kill my wife and I. It’s so terrifying.
Have any of them actually been following the CDC’s recommendations? It seems to me like most are either doing nothing at all, or doing as much as they can of everything without regards to the consequences, neither of which is the recommended best practice.
Here you go: look here
Gov Hutchinson locked down Nursing homes very early. No visitors allowed. Staff get their temperatures checked before entering the building. Patients temps are checked. We had one bad incident at a Little Rock nursing home with maybe 60 cases? This was very early in March.
Virus hit a few other nursing homes with lower numbers. Thankfully it hasn’t swept through them state wide. The containment measures seem to be working.
Restaurants were closed for dine-in mid March? Hutchinson was slow to close schools. But he finally did.
We don’t have mass transit across the state. I’m not sure what the busses in LR are doing. They may be shut down. I haven’t heard.
As a Massachusetts resident who didn’t vote for him I have to give him credit. I can’t really find fault with anything he has done given the resources and information he has had available to him. Hospitals are being hit hard now but don’t seem to be completely overwhelmed. They have found places to set up temporary hospitals and extra beds. And of course, we have all heard how he has been fighting the feds for equipment. They have also set up a program for extensive contact tracing.
There is widespread testing among the homeless. The infected are being given shelter in medical facilities. Many of the uninfected are being housed in college dorms.
The unemployment system here is functioning better than many places. This is the first time I have ever had to use it. My experience was smooth and everything was processed quickly. I think it only took about a week and a half before I got my benefits.
As far as restrictions and mandatory closings I think he has struck a good balance between keeping people safe and giving them enough freedom to do necessary errands and not go completely stir-crazy. I have some friends who think he has gone too far and some who think he has not gone far enough but no one is calling for rebellion.
Baker in MA
Cuomo in NY
Newsom in CA
DeWine in OH
Whitmer in MI
Hogan in MD
Have all been praised (as well as villified by the neofascists so that’s another star). I can vouch for Baker (live there) and Newsom (lots of friends/relatives in CA). They are not all Democrats, which is a little bright spot in the darkness that has covered the Republican party.
I didn’t vote for him, but I think Maryland governor Larry Hogan has done a pretty solid job. The governors of Maryland and Virginia, along with the DC Mayor, seem to be making an effort to stay on the same page for the most part.
Polis here in Colorado has done a good job. He’s stayed within the science and hasn’t been afraid to take action with little information. He also led the battle on the drive through testing sites and has pulled a lot of the good thing other countries are doing in even before the CDC recommended them. I’m pleasantly surprised with him. I don’t like his politics but he’s led well.
You forgot Jay Inslee, who’s been praised by many and vilified by Trump, who called him “nasty.”
Inslee blasted Trump today:
“The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to “liberate” states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.
“The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted.”
I haven’t agreed with Inslee on every issue, but today’s statement raised him several notches in my book.
Yeah, I am not a fan of Newsom, but he has handled this crisis very well.
Well, as an NY resident I am very pleased with Cuomo’s handling of the crisis. My wife, who is not a big Cuomo fan, is also highly impressed with him at this point.
As for third parties, your mileage differs from mine; I think fusion is a pretty terrible idea; I think tightening ballot access rules for third parties is generally a good plan; and I would feel a lot more sympathy for the Working Families Party if it had endorsed a real candidate vs. Cuomo instead of Cynthia Nixon, who had no political experience, no idea of how to run a campaign, no workable plans for governing on the off chance that she did get the nomination, and whose own campaign manager said she lost because “too many people voted in the primary”–which was somehow Cuomo’s fault. It was all pretty ridiculous.
I’m not a fan of Republican Mike DeWine here in Ohio but I will shout out loud that he is doing a very good job at handing this crisis.
One thing I appreciate is that he makes his decisions based on the science and lets Dr. Amy Acton field all questions pertaining to the scientific and medical aspects of what is happening.
Tom Wolf has stayed on top of things in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, a friend of ours was visiting his old mom in Mississippi when the shit hit the fan. He’s been “stuck” there ever since, both out of fear for his mom and fear for driving home to PA and having mechanical issues during the trip. He’s been freaking out over Mississippi’s poor excuse for a governor, Tate Reeves, who at one point was suggesting prayer as a COVID19 defense.
I agree except I did vote for him.
Someone should suggest he go visit some patients without PPE. Let’s see what his [del]response[/del] excuse is.