When will Voters Re-elect Populists? Lessons from COVID-19 in Brazil

COVID-19 preceded electoral upsets in many countries, but did it cause them? Using both OLS and instrumental variable methods on granular electoral data we find that, in the case of Brazil, (i) both COVID-19 mortality and underlying cases played a significant role in reducing the incumbent candidate’s votes; (ii) the absolute COVID-19 electoral penalty was stronger in more closely competitive municipalities; (iii) COVID-19 lost its relative importance in more competitive municipalities to factors, such as economic growth, electoral mobilization, inequality, as well as education and employment structure. As a result, while a typical voter at the national level may have been more interested in the healthcare costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, their electoral focus shifted to the economy in more competitive municipalities. This is a novel result on the electability of incumbent populists, implying changing perceptions of political competence when elections become more competitive. This result helps explain re-election strategies of incumbent populists who tend to downplay failures in managing the COVID-19 healthcare crisis and emphasize the state of the economy. Our results imply that populists can indeed boost their re-election chances if they exploit this political trade-off.