By Tom Donelson
When few GOP governors ignored the advice of Tony “I am Science” Fauci and his sidekick Debbie Birks, GOP states have outperformed Democratic states when it came to unemployment. In August of 2020, the GOP governors had an average of 6.4 percent to Democratic governors 8.4 percent. Wilfred Reilly own research showed similar data in favor of GOP states 6.4 percent to 8.2 percent. In the winter of 2020, eleven Republican states did not reinstate lockdown as there was increase in covid infection and after two years, their unemployment was only 2.9 percent vs. 3.9 percent for those lockdown states
After numerous studies for Americas Majority Foundation over a period of two years and based on Department of Labor data, we have seen consistently, Republican states outperformed Democratic states no matter if the state had a Republican governor or if the state has state government controlled by one party. Republican states with control of both the legislative and executive had unemployment of 3 percent in December of 2022 to Democrats controlled states of 4 percent. States that had mixed government 3.5 percent unemployment
After the 2022 midterms changes were made as four states, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nevada and Arizona saw changes in the governor race. Both Massachusetts and Maryland are now under complete Democratic control whereas Karen Hobbs is constrained by Republican legislature in Arizona. Nevada, the state with the highest unemployment has a new Republican governor and we will see if he has similar results than other Republican governors in lowering Nevada unemployment.
Over the first third of the year, GOP governors led states have unemployment 2.9 percent and Democrats governor led states have unemployment of 3.5 percent. States with Republican in complete of all aspect of governor unemployment of 2.8 percent versus 3.2 percent for Democrat complete controlled all aspect of government.
The advantages that Republicans with reducing unemployment continues into the first third of 2023 and when you look at top four most populous states with GOP governors outperformed their Democratic counterparts.
In December of 2022, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas averaged 3.4 percent unemployment and California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York average 4.25 percent unemployment. April of 2023, the four Republican averaged 3.35 percent unemployment and Democratic states averaged 4.2 percent unemployment.
In another study saw larger GOP states averaged 312,000 jobs created from February 2022 to February 2023 for a 3.4 percent increase whereas the four Democratic states averaged only 266,000 jobs created for only a 2.7 percent increase.
From August 2020, GOP governors have dropped from 6.4 to 2.9 percent unemployment versus Democratic governors dropping 8.4 to 3.4 in April of 2023.
Conclusion is that for the past nearly three years, GOP governors and state have outperformed their Democratic counterpart and first reason is that they opened their economy sooner during the pandemic and this gave them advantages. Open the economy and you can produce goods, services, and jobs. Governor Kemp, Noem, Reynolds, and DeSantis understood this and realized quickly the virus was not as lethal as originally predicted.