US counties with starkest coronavirus surges overwhelmingly voted Trump

Support for president despite Covid-19 spike suggests need to reconsider public health messaging, says doctor

Donald Trump received enormous support on Election Day in counties where coronavirus cases have risen dramatically, according to analysis.

Enormous support was seen in counties where new cases were at their highest rate, recorded in the run-up to the 3 November vote.

Among 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, some 93 per cent voted for Mr Trump, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Rural counties in Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin were among those that voted for the president at a rate above other areas where Covid-19 was less rampant.

The support came despite Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger, largely pitching the election as a vote on Mr Trump’s response to the pandemic, which has so far infected more than 9.6 million people, and killed over 234,000.

Hospitalisation rates have also risen nationally, with more than 53,000 people hospitalised with coronavirus on Thursday, according to The Covid Tracking Project.

“Public health officials need to step back, listen to and understand the people who aren’t taking the same stance” on mask-wearing and other measures, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, a public health expert.

“I think there’s the potential for things to get less charged and divisive," he added to the AP.

And with an electorate divided between Democrats and Republicans, voters also appeared to have similar divisions on Covid-19.

Thirty-six per cent of Trump voters described the pandemic as completely or mostly under control, and another 47 per cent said it was somewhat under control, according to AP.

Meanwhile, 82 per cent of Biden voters said the pandemic is not at all under control, according to VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 110,000 voters conducted for the AP by NORC at the University of Chicago.

In Wisconsin, where the virus surged just before the election, 57 per cent said the pandemic was not under control.

The “blue wall” state was among those in the Rust Belt to back Mr Biden on Tuesday, dealing a blow to Mr Trump’s reelection chances.