Misleading: Biden: “Look at the states having a spike, they are the red states, the states in the Midwest, in the upper Midwest, that is where the spike is occurring significantly.”

By: Priyam Nayak
October 23 2020

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While many states with high caseloads have Republican governors, Democrat-run states are also witnessing a surge in infections and deaths.During the presidential debate on Oct 22, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden asserted that the spike in coronavirus cases was happening largely in Republican states. While it is true that many of the states experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases are led by Republican governors, the claim is misleading because Democrat-run states are also witnessing a spike in infections. As of Oct 22, Worldometer data shows California, New York, Illinois, North Carolina, and New Jersey, all Democrat-run states among the ten states with the highest number of coronavirus cases. An analysis of coronavirus data by the Associated Press in July 2020 shows that in the first phase of the pandemic, Democrat-run states were harder hit by the virus but spread into Republican areas quickly, with their new cases eventually accounting more to the overall caseload than their Democratic counterparts. Another analysis conducted by The New York Times had revealed in May that the devastation caused by the virus was disproportionately high in blue America. Axios reported in September that New York (D), New Jersey (D), Texas (R), California (D), and Florida (R) have to date reported the highest number of deaths from the virus in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University but red states and battlegrounds, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Arizona, and Michigan were also in the top ten. According to the Washington Post, New York, and New Jersey, in particular, recorded hundreds of deaths a day in April, quickly contributing to the country’s total number of fatalities but over time, though, the percentage of total deaths that have occurred in blue states has dropped. “One implication from that shift is that it potentially reflects differences in how red and blue states have responded to the pandemic, with Democrats more broadly embracing containment and prevention measures than Republicans,” it said.