On April 7, 2020, Wisconsin held a major election for state positions and presidential preferences for both major parties. … We use county level data on voting and COVID-19 tests to connect the election to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We find a statistically and economically significant association between […] Read more »
As job losses mount, one industry bears the brunt of slowdown
The economic impacts of COVID-19 become more apparent with each new set of job and sales figures, but the pain is not spread evenly. Some industries have taken much harder hits than others, leaving many people insulated from the worst impacts — at least for now. The past week’s unemployment […] Read more »
‘Us Vs. Them’ In A Pandemic: Researchers Warn Divisions Could Get Dangerous
As the pandemic moves from public health crisis to partisan flashpoint, the debate over the coronavirus response in the U.S. is becoming increasingly nasty – and, in some cases, violent. It’s not just the clusters of gun-toting protesters at state capitols. In sporadic incidents across the country, disputes over emergency […] Read more »
Joe Biden needs black voters to win the presidency. And Covid-19 is making them even harder to reach
… Black voters form the backbone of the Democratic Party’s voter base: 93% of African Americans backed President Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012. And this year, black voters in South Carolina helped propel Biden to a landslide victory in the state’s primary, resuscitating his once-struggling campaign and putting him on […] Read more »
Crisis exposes how America has hollowed out its government
The government’s halting response to the coronavirus pandemic represents the culmination of chronic structural weaknesses, years of underinvestment and political rhetoric that has undermined the public trust — conditions compounded by President Trump’s open hostility to a federal bureaucracy that has been called upon to manage the crisis. … Public […] Read more »
Eye of the Storm
With states beginning to reopen and politics beginning to heat up, it feels like we’re in the eye of the storm – past the covid-19 hammer and preparing for the election maelstrom to come. CNN political analyst Harry Enten joins the Horse Race to help us make sense of this […] Read more »