Like so many others, COVID-19 has had a major impact on my life. My home state, New York was caught unprepared for the pandemic, at great loss. The ensuing response from government and private entities was scattered at best, and at times dangerous. The immense impact COVID has had on my family, community and country inspired me to research it. As the shock of a pandemic began to wear off, and states began reopening, conjectures about the differences between parties and states were widely articulated in the media and public discourse, with little data to support it. As a result, I decided to analyze the differences in lockdowns and reopening’s in each state, hoping to provide data and evidence for these assumptions. To do so, I knew that no study could be perfect. Comparing 50 states lockdowns, often created using arbitrary benchmarks, would undoubtedly be difficult. I categorized the severity of each state’s lockdown for a period of over 18 months. As I collected data, I read about what became of Wisconsin’s lockdown, where state Republican lawmakers caused the overturning of the Democratic Governor’s restrictions. I then decided to expand my study to analyze not just the differences between states’ governor’s political parties, but the differences between their legislative control in comparison to the governor.

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