There are many reasons why US voters might want to dump Donald Trump, but his poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to be the main one, new research has found.
Scientists surveyed thousands of people in the US, India and the UK - three countries hit hard by COVID-19 - and found while more than half of respondents blamed their governments for the virus' spread, that didn't necessarily mean they would vote them out.
Some of those in the study were primed with bad news about their own government's botched handling of the pandemic and the economic fallout. Others weren't.
The researchers expected those told just how bad things are - for example, the number of deaths and hospitalisations, and how much the economy could shrink - to "assign blame to government for the pandemic". Oddly, they didn't - even though about nine in 10 respondents said the government had "some responsibility" for citizens' health.
"The majority of our respondents believe health is an important policy area and that government has some responsibility for health. Further, a majority of people do think the government is to blame for the spread of the pandemic," the study said.
"However, we find that those exposed to key facts about the pandemic are no more likely to favour, or disfavour, the incumbent nor to assign blame to government for the pandemic, compared to an untreated control group."
The conclusion is that politicians are "unlikely to be punished or rewarded for their failures or successes in managing COVID-19".
"It is possible that the extreme nature of COVID‐19 and its seemingly irresistible global spread have inoculated politicians from blame."
In contrast, the 2020 New Zealand general election was dominated by the COVID-19 threat, with many ascribing Labour's landslide victory to its successful handling of local outbreaks. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other global institutions have praised New Zealand's efforts, and a recent study found that despite being caught off-guard, New Zealand had one of the quickest and strongest responses.
The US has had one of the worst responses in the world, recording the highest death toll to date and its President frequently spreading false information about the virus. A Columbia University study this week suggested up to 210,000 of the 223,000 deaths to date could have been avoided with "earlier policy interventions and more robust federal coordination and leadership".
The UK was slow to react and is still going in and out of lockdowns, eight months after the virus arrived there.
There is no UK election scheduled until 2024. The US has one in two weeks, which polls suggest challenger Joe Biden - who unlike his opponent, has publicly sided with scientists on the virus - will win.
The research was published in journal BMJ Global Health.
