COVID-19 Vaccination, Political Partisanship, and Moral Values

This paper examines the association between political partisanship, moral values, social trust, and willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 across U.S. counties. It shows how the effect of political partisanship on vaccination hesitancy differs based on the type of partisanship considered, with higher differences for historically partisan counties. Moreover, it reports relevant differences among the Republican partisans that are linked to preferences toward the populist right-wing of the Party. Our results also show how moral values that characterize the Democratic electorate such as those linked to altruism and fairness, as well as the presence of co-partisan state governors, helped to boost Covid-19 vaccination compliance in the U.S. counties. The results remain qualitatively unaffected when taking into consideration differences in the timing of vaccination campaigns across states and the potential endogeneity of political preferences.