Aid for incumbents: the electoral consequences of COVID-19 relief

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented federal transfers to state and local governments. Did this funding benefit incumbent politicians electorally? The conditions that triggered this funding influx might also affect incumbents for other reasons. We therefore develop an instrument to predict allocations to states based on variation in congressional representation. Using over a decade of election data, we find that incumbents in state-wide races performed significantly better in 2020 and beyond in states that received more relief funding due to their overrepresentation in Congress. These results are robust across specifications and after adjusting for a variety of economic and political controls. We uncover larger effects for governors and other statewide executive office holders than for legislators, providing suggestive evidence on underlying mechanisms. This paper contributes to our understanding of economic voting during times of crisis, the downstream electoral consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects of unequal political representation.