Pacheco, GWesselbaum, D2024-10-242024-10-242024-05-25Scottish Journal of Political Economy, ISSN: 0036-9292 (Print); 1467-9485 (Online), Wiley. doi: 10.1111/sjpe.123920036-92921467-9485http://hdl.handle.net/10292/18185In this article, we use state-level variation in Senate elections and partisanship to understand the variation in lockdown characteristics in the US. We argue that the state-level decision makers and their parties weigh off the perceived political costs in an election year of a depressed economy against risks to public health. Democrats and Republicans, and their voters, vary in the weights they attach to these costs and benefits. We are thus exploring the marginal effect of the party–election interaction after accounting for other likely drivers of variations in lockdown characteristics. We find that Republican states with an election have less strict and shorter lockdowns compared to Democratic states with an election. Our results have implications for the communication of pandemic policies, including vaccination strategies.© 2024 The Author(s). Scottish Journal of Political Economy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Scottish Economic Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/38 Economics3801 Applied Economics1401 Economic Theory1402 Applied Economics1606 Political ScienceEconomics3502 Banking, finance and investment3801 Applied economicsJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1111/sjpe.12392