Did COVID-19 infect Bolsonaro's 2022 election results? The impact of COVID deaths on electoral outcomes

Resumo

Did COVID-19 deaths affect Bolsonaro’s election results in 2022? This paper investigates whether COVID-19 deaths between 2020 and 2022 in Brazilian municipalities influenced the election results of former president Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. By exploring this relationship, the study contributes to literature on voting results in crisis mismanagement. Prior studies have investigated links between pandemic fatalities and electoral outcomes in the U.S., yet the Brazilian context remains fairly unexplored despite Brazil being one of the countries most severely affected by COVID-19. Using a difference in differences heterogeneous adoption design (Chaisemartin et al. 2024), this study tests if increased COVID-19 deaths corresponded with a decrease in votes for Bolsonaro in each municipality, revealing a statistically significant negative association, particularly in the second round of voting. However, the study did not meet the parallel trends assumption through placebo testing in pre-pandemic years, which limits causal interpretation. Nonetheless, this analysis remains relevant, as it provides preliminary evidence of a potential link between public health crises and political shifts in an increasingly polarized Brazilian scenario, encouraging further exploration with improved causal inference methods.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Outro

Ano

2024

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Inglês

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/39417

Palavras-chave

Voter behaviorElection resultsCOVID-19HeterogeneityCrisis managementCiência política