Elderly Trump voters dying of coronavirus could cost him in November

Guno צְבִי

We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
An academic journal projects that deaths of 65-and-older Republican voters in several swing states will far exceed those of Democrats.

“The pandemic is going to take a greater toll on the conservative electorate leading into this election — and that’s simply just a calculation of age,” Andrew Johnson, the lead author and a professor of management at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said in an interview. “The virus is killing more older voters, and in many states that’s the key to a GOP victory.”

Johnson and his colleagues Wendi Pollock and Beth M. Rauhaus projected that even with shelter-in-place orders remaining in effect, about 11,000 more Republicans than Democrats who are 65 and older could die before the election in both Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, should the state return to using only social distancing to fight infections, over 13,000 more Republican than Democratic voters in that age category could be lost.

The study is based on early fatality projections from CovidActNow.org that are orders of magnitude higher than what's borne out so far in battleground states — a point some outside experts have seized on to inject a dose of skepticism in the study’s findings. In an interview, Johnson acknowledged the high numbers used for the study, but he contended it remains early and that easing of stay-at-home orders could spark more cases and deaths.

William Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar on governance, said the effects are large enough only to affect outcomes in states that are very narrowly divided. But he concluded the study made sense.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/how-coronavirus-could-upend-2020-battlegrounds-204708
 
Trump supporters, especially in Greater Appalachia, tend to be older and heavier, traits correlated with underlying conditions that make Covid-19 more lethal, he said. Smoking levels — another leading indicator of vulnerability — also tend to be higher in red areas. :)
 
Researchers on the fatality study said they found the virus could also ravage Republicans across Florida and Georgia :awesome:, where GOP leaders have been pulling back on aggressive defenses.
 
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