  Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19,
amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death
rates than Democrat-leaning counties and evidence of a link between political
party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an
individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates
during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio
and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially
higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to
registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the
period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the
excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%,
higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post-vaccines, the excess
death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of
the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death
rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is
concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after
vaccines became widely available.
