Republican gubernatorial candidate for Florida Ron DeSantis waves to the crowd during an election night watch party at the Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
In the 2022 midterm elections, governors who opposed prolonged COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and quickly allowed their states to reopen had an easier time winning reelection than they had in the 2018 elections.
In the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, and Jared Polis of Colorado all easily secured reelection, by an average of 18.1 percentage points.
The anti-lockdown governors’ wide victories contrasted sharply with 2018, when the same five candidates prevailed by an average of 3.7 points.
Florida
Among the governors, DeSantis stood out with a 19.4-point victory margin in his reelection in 2022 compared to 0.4 points in winning his first election for governor four years ago.
Florida was one of the states that stayed open for most of the COVID-19 pandemic. DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order on April 1, 2020, locking down the Sunshine State for 30 days.
Florida’s lockdown order was notably less strict than some of the stay-at-home measures imposed in other states that allowed recreational activities, but what constituted an “essential business” was broadly defined.
“Our economy kept going,” DeSantis said in an interview with The Epoch Times in April 2021. “It was much different than what you saw in some of those lockdown states.”
While Florida is either performing better or relatively the same as the strict lockdown states in terms of COVID mortalities, the state’s economy is booming compared to the crippled economies in California and New York.
South Dakota
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 16, 2021. (Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo)
In South Dakota, Noem, a Republican, rose to national prominence during her first term as the state’s first female governor, and her 27 percentage point victory margin—very much larger than 2018’s 3.4 percentage points—seems to prove the popularity of her hands-off approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She stood firm in rejecting issuing a stay-at-home order throughout the pandemic. South Dakota was the only state that never ordered any businesses or churches to close, never imposed a lockdown or a mask mandate, and refrained from classifying businesses into essential and nonessential categories.
“COVID didn’t crush the economy. Government crushed the economy,” Noem said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, in February 2021.
Georgia
(Left) Republican gubernatorial candidate Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during his primary night election party at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta on May 24, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images); (Right) Stacey Abrams speaks onstage during the Beautiful Noise Live Equality on the Ballot panel at Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta on Sept. 19, 2022. (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)
In Georgia, Kemp also cruised to an easy victory in the midterm elections. Kemp defeated Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, by a margin of 7.6 percentage points. Compared to his triumph over the same opponent in 2018, who he beat by just 1.4 percentage points, the gap was far larger.
Kemp led measures to reopen Georgia after the COVID-19 pandemic brought everyday life to a halt in March 2020. He was one of the first in the country to allow small businesses to reopen. Georgia school children came back to school sooner than in most states.
He halted the state’s gas tax collection during the pandemic and issued state income tax rebates, and recounted his pandemic leadership while on the campaign trail.
Throughout the pandemic, Kemp also rejected calls to force Georgia schools to impose statewide mask requirements, preferring to let local officials decide.
“This will ensure that parents have the final say when it comes to the health and well-being of their child,” Kemp said at the time. “It is a common-sense measure that puts the parents in charge—not the government.”
Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, then-governor-elect, speaks at a rally in Denver on Nov. 6, 2018. (Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images)
In Colorado, Polis walked an unusual path among his Democratic peers with the shortest stay-at-home orders at just one month starting on March 26, 2020.
He also adopted a more lenient policy on school closures than his Democrat peers. The governor ordered the closing of the state’s schools for the rest of the academic year in April 2020 while enabling districts to decide for themselves whether to begin the next school year with in-person instruction or not.
In December 2021, he declared that the COVID-19 emergency was “over.” The governor also said he would leave masking mandates up to individual counties and municipalities.
His work during the pandemic was applauded by Colorado voters, who reelected him by 18.1 percentage points. In his 2018 race for governor, Polis won by a margin of 10.6 percentage points, therefore the result this year was 7.5 percentage points better.
Iowa
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds waves after speaking during a ceremonial swearing-in at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 24, 2017. (Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo)
In Iowa, Reynolds also became famous for keeping children in school during the COVID-19 pandemic while going against mask mandates and ensuring that the state’s citizens were able to live freely.
After half of the year’s school closure in 2020, she signed legislation requiring schools open to in-person instruction in January 2021.
In May 2021, Reynolds signed legislation to ban mask mandates in the state’s public schools, as well as in cities and counties.
“The state of Iowa is putting parents back in control of their child’s education and taking greater steps to protect the rights of all Iowans to make their own health care decisions,” Reynolds said at the time.
“I am proud to be a governor of a state that values personal responsibility and individual liberties.”
Reynolds’s approach earned popularity that helped her win reelection by 18.6 percentage points, surpassing her narrow gap of 2.8 points in 2018.
Ivan Pentchoukov, Mimi Nguyen Ly, Jack Phillips, and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
Hannah Ng is a reporter covering U.S. and China news. She holds a master's degree in international and development economics from the University of Applied Science Berlin.
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