New Delhi: While the US continues to await the final outcome of the extremely tight presidential race between incumbent Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, an analysis by Associated Press has revealed that Trump enjoyed “enormous support” in places where Covid-19 is rampant.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a key contention this election, with several people criticising Trump administration’s mishandling of the virus. The US is the worst-affected country in the world and has recorded a total of 96,97,700 cases and at least 2,35,300 people have succumbed to the virus, so far.
The cases continue to surge in the country and a record number of over 1,21,000 cases were reported Thursday, for the second consecutive day.
However, despite all this, the AP analysis noted that 93 per cent of “376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita” voted for Trump.
Most of the 376 counties belonged to rural areas of Montana, North and the South Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin where following social distancing norms and Covid protocols to avoid a surge has not been a popular practice.
Trump voters believe pandemic under control
The analysis was conducted in counties where at least 95 per cent of the precincts had reported their election results, which were then divided into six groups based “on the rates of COVID-19 cases they’d experienced per 100,000 residents”.
According to AP VoteCast — a nationwide survey of more than 1,10,000 voters — there was a marked difference in the views of those who voted for Trump and those who voted for Biden, on the government’s handling of the pandemic.
About 36 per cent of Trump voters believe that the pandemic is “completely or mostly under control” while 47 per cent think it’s “somewhat under control.” In contrast, 82 per cent Biden voters state the pandemic is “not under control at all”.
The majority of the voters in states where the Republican party won — Alabama (60 per cent), Missouri (54 per cent), Mississippi (58 per cent), Kentucky (55 per cent), Texas (55 per cent), Tennessee (56 per cent) and South Carolina (56 per cent) — believed that the pandemic was “at least somewhat under control”.
While in Wisconsin, a state where a quarter million people have tested positive for Covid-19 and was flipped by Biden, 47 per cent of the voters believed that the pandemic is not under control. This was echoed in the states of Washington, New York and New Hampshire, as well — all of which voted for Biden.
Anthony Fauci a unifying factor
According to AP, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has emerged as a “unifying force” with 73 per cent voters approving Fauci’s handling of the pandemic.
President Trump has continuously tried to blame Fauci, who has been heading NIAID since 1984, for the Covid surge and mishandling of the pandemic in the US, going as far as threatening to fire him.
Surprisingly, more than half of Trump voters — and “about 9 in 10 Biden voters” — feel that Fauci was doing a good job.
With election results coming down to the wire and Biden marginally leading in the key states of Arizona and Nevada, Trump has been trying to halt voting and even called the entire election fraudulent.
The election counting began on 3 November and is expected to stretch into the weekend as several states remain uncalled. While Trump has retained Florida, Texas and Ohio, Biden has managed to flip Wisconsin and Michigan, according to the NBC News projections.
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