The COVID-19 pandemic and the electoral performance of governing parties in electoral democracies

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had tremendous impacts on political, economic and social developments across the globe. Although some studies show that voters tend to hold incumbent parties accountable for managing the pandemic, the results of others suggest that the rally-round-the-flag strategy might be at plan. We contend that voters tend to hold the incumbent party accountable, even during an exogenous shock, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesize that more stringent government responses to tackle the pandemic and more COVID-19 casualties tend to decrease the electoral support for incumbent parties. Using original data from 67 national elections in 56 electoral democracies from mid-March 2020 to May 2022, the empirical results support our hypothesis.