Republican Vs. Democratic Governors: COVID-19 Deaths

A New York Post editorial on July 3 denounced the Liberal Media, including The New York Times and Washington Post, for disseminating the false narrative that the recent spike in COVID-19 cases was mainly attributable to states with Republican governors, who recklessly re-opened a few months ago.

"Media Refuse to Admit the Coronavirus Doesn't Care About Red vs. Blue" notes that in April the "national daily death toll was often above 2,000," but it has now plunged to "around 600." But neither the NY Post nor other conservative media outlets have documented how many coronavirus fatalities occurred in states with Republican governors, as compared to the number of deaths in states with Democrats.

Based on the death tolls compiled at the Atlantic Magazine's COVID Tracking Project, as of the afternoon of July 6, I calculated that the 26 states with Republican governors have 35,384 coronavirus deaths, or 29%, of America's 121,926.

The 24 states with Democratic governors have 86,542 deaths, or 71% of the nation's fatalities.

However, on July 1, 2019,the 24 Democratic-led states had 177,301,000 residents, or 54.2%, of the nation's 326,826,000 people. The 26 Republican-led states had 149,525,000, or 45.8%.

Thus, the states with Republican governors have 23.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, while those with Democratic governors have 48.8 deaths per 100,000.

With a population of 326,826,000 and 121,926 coronavirus deaths, America's fatality rate is 37.3 per 100,000.

What factors account for states with Democratic governors having more than double the number of deaths per 100,000 residents, as compared to those with Republicans?

The primary reason is that the three states in metro New York – New York with 24,904 deaths, New Jersey with 15,211 and Connecticut with 4,335 – account for a mind-boggling 44,450 deaths, or 36.5%, of the nation's 121,926 total fatalities.

But in 2019, the three states t'otal population of 31,903,000 represented just 9.7% of America's 326,826,000 people.

Their COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 residents are:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's New York: 128.0

Gov. Phil Murphy's New Jersey: 171.3

Gov. Ned Lamont's Connecticut: 121.6

New York City, led by the serially incompetent Democrat Bill de Blasio, has 18,596 deaths as of July 6, or 223.1 per 100,000 residents.

While Andrew Cuomo's New York has the second highest fatality rate among the 50 states, the three states with larger populations – California, Texas, Florida – have a combined 12,800 fatalities as of July 6, and thus much lower death rates. California's Democratic governor is Gavin Newsom, and the Republican governors of Texas and Florida are, respectively, Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis, and their key statistics are:

Gov. Cuomo's performance in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic is so abominable that the Democratic-controlled state legislature should have impeached him in May. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio should have also been removed from office two months ago.

In addition to California's Newsom, other Democratic governors of states among the Top 13 most populous, who effectively battled the coronavirus epidemic are: Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Dr. Ralph Northam of Virginia, and Jay Inslee of Washington.

Their vital statistics are:

Conversely, two states with Republican governors – Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Larry Hogan in Maryland – performed badly in the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic:

Four other Democratic governors – J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and John Bel Edwards of Louisiana– did not effectively fight the COVID-19 epidemic:

Key conclusions about how each of America's 50 states battled the epidemic are:

1. Overall, the 26 Republican-led states performed much better than the 24 states with Democratic governors.
2. Tri-state New York governors – New York's Cuomo, New Jersey's Murphy, Connecticut's Lamont – have the worst records in battling COVID-19. Over the last two weeks, they have taken epidemiological demagoguery to McCarthyite levels by announcing an ever-expanding "Fake Voluntary Quarantine" from visitors from 19 states, 13 of whom have Republican governors. These states have recently seen a spike in the number of residents testing positive for the virus, but not a worrisome increase in daily death totals.
3. Fourteen Democratic-led states have done well.
4. Only two Republican-led states – Massachusetts and Maryland – have done poorly.
5. Indeed, the Center for Disease Control's provisional death tallies show only six states have experienced at least a 10% spike in total deaths from all causes this year, as compared to deaths for the first six months in previous years: Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York.

As the late Democratic Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who retired in 2000, famously said: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts."

Tragically, wise, decisive and moderate leaders, like Sen. Moynihan, have been in short supply among the top leadership of the Democratic Party nationwide during the 21st century. Indeed, seven major states with Democratic governors – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Louisiana – account for 68,032 of the nation's 121,925 coronavirus deaths, or a highly disproportional 55.8%.