Partisan risk tolerance for in‐person voting during the pandemic: Survey evidence from the U.S. 2020 election

Abstract

To what extent will people turn out to vote under high-risk, high-cost circumstances? We examine the impact of risk tolerance on willingness to vote in person in the U.S. 2020 election during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our results are based on pre- and postelection surveys that indicated partisan Republicans were more willing to vote in person than Democrats or Independents, who preferred voting by mail. Using behavioral measures of risk-taking, we find that Republican in-person voting is predicted by greater generalized and pandemic-related risk tolerance compared with Democrats and nonpartisans. To explain risk tolerance, we employ prospect theory to illustrate how Republicans’ fear of electoral loss, alongside conservative elite and media efforts to downplay COVID-19 severity, likely influenced Republican readiness to assume risks of in-person voting during the pandemic. We urge scholars to consider the implications of risk tolerance for models of electoral behavior under high-risk and high-cost voting conditions.