Between Withdrawal and Engagement: Disentangling the Effects of Covid-19 on Turnout

Article Abstract:
This project marks the first test of the household-level turnout effects of living with someone who died from Covid-19. Drawing on policy feedback and threat literatures, I argue that the theoretical effects of close Covid contact are unclear. I link death records with the registered voter file to identity Americans who lived with a decedent, leveraging a triple-differences design to distinguish the effect household Covid deaths on turnout from non-Covid ones in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Washington State. Household Covid deaths reduced turnout in all three states, though the effect was different (and larger) than non-Covid household deaths only in Washington. I thus conclude that while Covid deaths clearly lowered household turnout, they operated largely through the opportunity costs associated with household deaths more generally rather than a distinctly political response to the government’s handling of the pandemic.