When Can Individual Partisanship Be Tempered? Mass Behavior and Attitudes across the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

How does the effect of partisanship on behavior and attitudes vary across contexts? Using new individual-level panel data on the COVID-19 pandemic from 54,216 US adults between March 2020-September 2021, we assess how the effect of partisanship relates to the personal costs and benefits of behaviors, their public symbolism, and political context. We exploit plausibly exogenous changes in the vaccine rollout, individual-level vaccination status, and within-state policy variation using a variety of fixed effects models that leverage advantages of the data. Although the impact of partisanship on individuals' actions and views is extensive even in (ostensibly) apolitical domains, it is tempered by higher net personal costs to actions, lower public symbolism, and elite policy choices that counter national party cues.

Keywords: Beliefs, Coronavirus and COVID-19, Economic Disruption, Expectations, Partisanship, Political Affiliation, Social Distancing

JEL Classification: E66, E71, I12, I31