>> covid, well, right. it is who is worse, right? that is the breakdown. who's worse? and it is all partisan. if anybody thinks that covid created clarity that was transcendent of politics, it's just reinforce the same old rules. >> that is exactly right. it's just reinforced the same old rules. what i'll note here is that i think a lot of people expect a certain relationship with covid, right? when cases are up you expect that the incumbents would be punished. if cases are down the incumbents should benefit. but what in fact do we see? this is the 2016 versus the 2020 election. if you look at the change between those two in the counties in which there were more covid cases in the top quartile what happened to the democratic margin? it went down. donald trump improved in places where covid deaths were highest. in fact, where he did worse was where they were lowest. >> why? >> the reason why is a bunch of things. number one where the cases tended to be lowest were places