IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/312942.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How COVID-19 affects voting for incumbents: Evidence from local elections in France

Author

Listed:
  • Morisi, Davide
  • Cloléry, Héloïse
  • Kon Kam King, Guillaume
  • Schaub, Max

Abstract

How do voters react to an ongoing natural threat? Do voters sanction or reward incumbents even when incumbents cannot be held accountable because an unforeseeable natural disaster is unfolding? We address this question by investigating voters’ reactions to the early spread of COVID-19 in the 2020 French municipal elections. Using a novel, fine-grained measure of the circulation of the virus based on excess-mortality data, we find that support for incumbents increased in areas that were particularly hard hit by the virus. Incumbents from both left and right gained votes in areas more strongly affected by COVID-19. We provide suggestive evidence for two mechanisms that can explain our findings: an emotional channel related to feelings of fear and anxiety, and a prospective-voting channel, related to the ability of incumbents to act more swiftly against the diffusion of the virus than challengers.

Suggested Citation

  • Morisi, Davide & Cloléry, Héloïse & Kon Kam King, Guillaume & Schaub, Max, 2024. "How COVID-19 affects voting for incumbents: Evidence from local elections in France," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 1-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:312942
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297432
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/312942/1/Full-text-article-Morisi-et-al-How-COVID-19-affects.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0297432?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2009. "Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 387-406, August.
    2. Akarca, Ali T. & Tansel, Aysit, 2007. "Social and Economic Determinants of Turkish Voter Choice in the 1995 Parliamentary Election," IZA Discussion Papers 2881, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Quattrone, George A. & Tversky, Amos, 1988. "Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 719-736, September.
    4. Heersink, Boris & Peterson, Brenton D. & Jenkins, Jeffery A., 2017. "Disasters and Elections: Estimating the Net Effect of Damage and Relief in Historical Perspective," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 260-268, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cerqua, A. & Ferrante, C. & Letta, M., 2021. "Electoral Earthquake: Natural Disasters and the Geography of Discontent," GLO Discussion Paper Series 790, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Cerqua, Augusto & Ferrante, Chiara & Letta, Marco, 2023. "Electoral earthquake: Local shocks and authoritarian voting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Roberto Ramos & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Backing the incumbent in difficult times: the electoral impact of wildfires," Working Papers 1810, Banco de España.
    4. Kikuta,Kyosuke & Ono, Yoshikuni, 2024. "Global Evidence for the Relevance of Irrelevant Events: International Soccer Games and Leader Approval," IDE Discussion Papers 942, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    5. Livert, Felipe & Weaver, Julie Anne & Bordón, Paola, 2025. "Rewarding performance in disaster response: Evidence from local governments in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    6. Gianmarco Daniele & Andrea F.M. Martinangeli & Francesco Passarelli & Willem Sas & Lisa Windsteiger, 2020. "Wind of Change? Experimental Survey Evidence on the Covid-19 Shock and Socio-Political Attitudes in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 8517, CESifo.
    7. Cavalcanti, Francisco, 2018. "Voters sometimes provide the wrong incentives. The lesson of the Brazilian drought industry," MPRA Paper 88317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    9. Frank R. Baumgartner & Christine Mahoney, 2008. "Forum Section: The Two Faces of Framing," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(3), pages 435-449, September.
    10. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    11. Jeroen Klomp, 2020. "Election or Disaster Support?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1), pages 205-220, January.
    12. Henrik Serup Christensen & Lauri Rapeli, 2021. "Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 63-94, March.
    13. John Patty & Roberto Weber, 2007. "Letting the good times roll: A theory of voter inference and experimental evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 293-310, March.
    14. Giuliano Masiero & Michael Santarossa, 2020. "Earthquakes, grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 481-516, June.
    15. Carla Morvan & Sonia Paty, 2024. "Natural disasters and voter gratitude: What is the role of prevention policies?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 198(3), pages 427-465, March.
    16. André Schultz & Alexander Libman, 2015. "Is there a local knowledge advantage in federations? Evidence from a natural experiment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 25-42, January.
    17. Adriana Kocornik-Mina & Thomas K. J. McDermott & Guy Michaels & Ferdinand Rauch, 2020. "Flooded Cities," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 35-66, April.
    18. Eiichi Tomiura & Banri Ito & Hiroshi Mukunoki & Ryuhei Wakasugi, 2016. "Individual Characteristics, Behavioral Biases, and Trade Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey in Japan," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 1081-1095, November.
    19. Susana Ferreira, 2024. "Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: Economic Impacts and Adaptation Policies," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 207-231, October.
    20. George Ward, 2015. "Is Happiness a Predictor of Election Results?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1343, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:312942. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.