Method
Here we look at the cumulative confirmed cases and deaths per million population by US state, dividing up the states by the political party of the governor (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_governors). We analyzed the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths data (see https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19).
Results
We use the governor's political affiliation since according to https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/covid-cases-soar-gop-state-lawmakers-keep-fighting-limit-governors-n1247801) "in public health emergencies, governors have broad powers to impose quarantines and other actions to stop the spread of disease" (also see https://www.nga.org/coronavirus-state-actions-all/ for some of the actions taken). It should be noted that in some states such as Wisconsin (WI) with Democratic governors but GOP legislatures and largely conservative courts, however, the governor has had their power to control the spread of the virus limited in some fashion through lawmaker actions.
The results are shown below
Chart of US states Covid-19 cumulative cases: deaths per million population vs cumulative confirmed cases per million population as of The states are labeled by their abbreviation. |
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The chart shows that states with republican governors typically have a larger number of confirmed cases per capita than democratic governor states (the average(confirmed case for Democratic governors)/average(confirmed cases for Republican governors) ~ 0.8). Also note that states such as Vermont (VT), New Hampshire (NH), Massachusetts (MA), Maryland (MD) all with republican governors yet with low cumulative confirmed cases per capita all voted for the democrat Joe Biden to be the president-elect (see below).
The reason that the states New Jersey (NJ), New York (NY), Massachusetts (MA), Connecticut (CT), Delaware (DW), Rhode Island (RI) and the District of Columbia (DC) all show up with high deaths may have to do with the fact that these were the first states (when the ratio of deaths/confirmed cases was high) to have high numbers of confirmed cases of Covid-19, see below:
| US states daily confirmed cases per million population during the early months | US states daily deaths per million population during early months | US states daily deaths per million population up until |
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Also see:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA