I think this is correlation without causation. The party in power didn’t have anything to do with a medical event of 2 month duration.
The reaction and its economic effect will however. It will be interesting to see how Wolf in Pa. will explain his lockdown strategy when Pa. had the biggest reduction in deaths both in percentage and absolute numbers. Covid was a non-event in mortality in Pa.
I agree; with the exception of a few places like New York City, for instance. Lock down out not did not radically change most states outcomes, while one factor, more than others was relevant, I believe - population density. Lock down or not, more people in closer proximity gives a virus more chances for a single infection to catch others.
For instance, Wuhan China has a population about the same as New York City, but it’s population density is about 15,254/sq mile, while New York City’s population is jammed in at 26,403/sq mile. To me it is no accident, no matter what New York did, that New York City would be the largest epicenter of the virus in the U.S., or that New York state, with over half it’s people in the metro New York City area would have the most deaths for any state in the country. There are other factors that contributed to that of course, put other than total quarantine of the entire city and all traffic and commerce in and out, New York was bound to be the big U.S. hot spot.