How much did lockdown and mRNA regret drive voters toward Trump?

The hard-blue states with the toughest lockdowns and vaccine mandates had by far the biggest shifts; a reader email suggests one reason the link may not be coincidental.

This amazing chart ranks states by how heavily their voters shifted toward Trump from 2020 to 2024:

Overall, Trump picked up about 6-7 points in the national popular vote. He trained by 4.5 percentage points in 2020 and will win by 2 or so this time.

But, as this chart shows definitively, blue state voters drove the shift.

Six of the top seven moves to Trump occurred in hard-left states, led by California, the hardest of all. (Florida, the only exception, has gained hundreds of thousands of blue-state refugees since 2020, helping drive its shift.)

And after Mississippi come three more blue states. Except for Mississippi and Florida, the list pretty much captures the states with the hardest Covid lockdown and vaccine mandates and the highest mRNA jab rates.

I was mulling over the correlation this morning when a most interesting reader email popped up in my in-box.

(To find out what it says, subscribe! Paid subscribers deserve a little something extra sometimes too… This one is for you. So subscribe now to read it, or wait a week!)

REPRODUCED IN FULL, WITHOUT EDITS:

Hi Alex - Subscriber,  fan, etc.  I share this story because it aligns with the few post-COVID shot studies we seen about long-term immune system impacts of MRNA shots while recognizing it's anectodical.  Perhaps you've seen or heard something similar.

I work for a DC-based software company and I sell to the Federal government.  My colleagues and clients are "We Believe" yard sign people who posted pics of their COVID shot cards on social media.  In 2022, these same people raced to get their booster, most got sick from the shot, got COVID two weeks later, and spent the rest of the fall bragging about how all that made them smart.  (Despite not wanting it, I got the JJ shot for work.)

Flash forward to 2024:  It seems to me that an unusually high number of my colleagues and clients have been very sick this since Labor Day.  The duration and severity of the illness has made this notable; multiple cases of pneumonia and colds/COVID so severe they cannot even work from home and the severity lasts for days.  Persistent 102+ fevers for adults, ER visits, etc.  

And for the first time, people are questioning if the COVID shots are playing a role.  I have had multiple "I think these COVID shots may have messed up my immune system" conversations.  As you know, in these parts, until very recently, that statement was about as acceptable as dressing up as Robert E. Lee for a Halloween party.  And these people are not MAGA people or openly political in casual conversation at all.  But they seem genuine, and, candidly, they seem a little scared, especially for their kids.

How many quiet COVID shot regrets helped Trump?  Who knows but the correlation between shots, illness, questioning, and a DJT strong overperformance may go beyond simple correlation.  

You are welcome to use any of this but please leave my name out of it.  In my business, tolerance only extends to approved topics.

Good luck in your lawsuit.  I bet you can get that White House tour next year.

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Fascinating, huh?

As I wrote back, I haven’t seen hard data to back up what he’s seeing on the medical side. I'm not even sure it even exists, at least not in a near-real-time way. People would have to be sick enough to strain hospital capacity meaningfully, and I don't think there's any evidence of that.

I suspect he’s right about the politics, though. Obviously, many other factors are at play here. But people KNOW the shots failed, even if they are still reluctant to say so publicly. And the more pressure they felt, the more used and angry they likely feel.

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If you’ve heard similar stories, please let me know. This potential trend is worth monitoring, even anecdotally.

Back to Berenson v Biden…