Keena Lipsitz and Grigore Pop-Eleches's piece in The Washington Post is based on their recent study, which used data that Google made public. Their analysis -- controlling for demographic variables, viral spread, and governor stay-at-home orders -- suggests
partisanship is responsible for the fact that people living in Republican counties have changed their behavior less than those living in Democratic counties. People look to their leaders for cues about how to behave, particularly in times of crisis.
Keena Lipsitz is an associate professor of political science at Queens College, City University of New York and the author of “Competitive Elections and the American Voter” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
Grigore Pop-Eleches is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and a CSDP faculty associate. He is co-author, with Joshua Tucker, of “Communism’s Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes” (Princeton University Press, 2017).