Using variation in federal pandemic-era fiscal aid to states driven by the strength of political representation, we find that incremental pandemic-era fiscal aid to states was most likely to end up in the categories of general administrative service spending and employee pension benefit funding....

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented levels of federal aid transfers to state governments. Did this funding increase benefit state incumbents electorally? Identifying the effect of revenue windfalls on economic voting is challenging because whatever conditions led to the influx of cash...