Bigmouth Strikes Again: Electoral Impact of Reckless Speech during a Pandemic

We investigate how voters react to denialist campaigns in light of a global pandemic by looking at COVID-19’s impact on the electoral performance of then incumbent Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019- 2022). Oriented by the existence of differences in intercity commuting costs, we devise a novel instrument from epidemiological analysis of viral spread in the country. We exploit the fact that less isolated municipalities faced larger cumulative mortality rates to show deaths due to the disease brought severe electoral costs to Bolsonaro, ultimately leading to his loss. We attribute this result to voters’ perception of recklessness stemming from his speeches, since they were seemingly supportive of lax sanitary measures and did not simply blame incumbents.