Charles GabaNov 13, 2022

I posted a long thread about this yesterday but here again is my analysis of the possible impact of the #GOPCovidDeathCult on House races: 1/

https://acasignups.net/22/11/12/elephant-room-redux-part-2-did-gops-covid-death-cult-decide-any-house-races

Elephant in the Room Redux, Part 2: Did the GOP's COVID Death Cult decide any HOUSE races?

A couple of days ago, in Part 1, I looked at whether or not the massive COVID death rate divide between Republicans & Democrats between the 2020 and 2022 elections ended up being enough to be a decisive factor in any statewide races. My conclusion was that there's likely to only be one statewide race* where a Republican candidate loses by less than the COVID death margin: The Nevada Senate race where, as of this writing, incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is trailing Republican challenger Adam Laxalt by less than 800 votes. I estimate that somewhere between 900 - 2,400 more Trump voters than Biden voters died of COVID-19 over the past two years, so if Laxalt ends up losing by less than 2,400 votes, I'd say it's pretty likely that yes, the partisan gap in COVID deaths did indeed play a small but critical role. *Caveat: It's also conceivable that the Arizona Governor or Arizona Attorney General races could fall into this zone as well; as of this writing, Democrat Katie Hobbs is leading by around 26,000 votes for AZ Governor while Democrat Kris Mayes is leading by roughly 16,000 votes. So, that's statewide races. What about U.S. House races, however?

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Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
In short, there’s really only a dozen races where the GOP candidate *might* end up losing by less than the #GOPCovidDeathCult margin, which ranges from 0 - 600 votes in these 20 races (some of which have already been called since yesterday). 2/
Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
I estimate that perhaps ~150K more Trump voters died of COVID than Biden voters between the 2020 & 2022 elections nationally. That’s a lot of people, but it’s tiny vs the ~112M who voted in the midterms, and most of these deaths happened in solid red/blue districts anyway. 3/
Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
At the state level, the only Senate seat which ended up being close to my #GOPCovidDeathCult estimate was Nevada, but it still looks like the winning margin will be outside my ~2,400 vote estimate. 4/
Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
There’s still the remote possibility that #AZGovernor and/or #AZAG might fall into my ~4,100 vote margin as well, and there’s also my ~5,700 estimate for the upcoming #GASenate runoff. 5/ https://acasignups.net/22/11/11/elephant-room-redux-part-1-did-gops-covid-death-cult-decide-any-statewide-races
Elephant in the Room Redux, Part 1: Did the GOP's COVID Death Cult decide any statewide races?

I posted my final analysis of the potential impact of the COVID death rate divide between Republicans & Democrats on 2022 midterm election results back in September. According to official CDC data, around 815,000 Americans died of COVID-19 between 10/31/20 - 09/10/22. Of those, I had estimated that perhaps 569,000 had actually voted for Biden or Trump. The total number has tragically risen by around 7,000 more since mid-September, which means the number of 2020 voters who've died is also likely around 4,900 higher. Nationally, Joe Biden received 81,283,501 votes to Donald Trump's 74,223,975 votes. If COVID impacted both voting blocs at identical rates, you'd normally expect roughly 9.5% more Biden voters to have died of COVID over the past 2 years than Trump voters...or roughly 25,000 more Biden voters. Instead, however, I estimated that nationally, perhaps ~150,000 more Americans who voted for TRUMP in 2020 had died of COVID-19 between the 2020 general election and the 2022 midterm election than those who voted for Biden. Several obvious caveats apply here: "Voted for Trump" or "Voted for Biden" isn't a perfect overlap with Republicans and Democrats It also isn't a perfect overlap with how those ~569K people would have voted this year.

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Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
Just for the hell of it, I decided to run the numbers on two of the deepest red districts, where the #GOPCovidDeathCult also ran the strongest. I picked #AL04 and #KY05. 6/
Show threadCharles Gaba

In #AL04, I estimate 1,883 Trump voters likely died between the 2020 & 2022 elections vs. just 59 Biden voters, a difference of 1,824.

In #KY05, I estimate 1,992 Trump voters likely died between the 2020 & 2022 elections vs. just 70 Biden voters, a difference of 1,921. 7/

Nov 13, 2022 at 2:01pmMastodon Twitter Crossposter
Show threadCharles GabaNov 13, 2022
However, the fact that these are such deeply red districts also means that even a huge partisan COVID death difference is meaningless electorally: Both GOP incumbents won by nearly 138,000 votes, so losing nearly 2,000 of their own voters was a rounding error for them. 8/