  COVID-19 related policies were extensively politicized during the 2020
election year of the United States, resulting in polarizing viewpoints. Twitter
users were particularly engaged during the 2020 election year. Here we
investigated whether COVID-19 related tweets were associated with the overall
election results at the state level during the period leading up to the
election day. We observed weak correlations between the average sentiment of
COVID-19 related tweets and popular votes in two-week intervals, and the trends
gradually become opposite. We then compared the average sentiments of COVID-19
related tweets between states called in favor of Republican (red states) or
Democratic parties (blue states). We found that at the beginning of lockdowns
sentiments in the blue states were much more positive than those in the red
states. However, sentiments in the red states gradually become more positive
during the summer of 2020 and persisted until the election day.

Computation and Language;Social and Information Networks