COVID backlash threatens incumbents at all levels: The Note

One might think, two years into the pandemic, that the storyline elected officials flouting their own COVID guidelines in public would have run its course.

The TAKE with Rick Klein

One might think, two years into the pandemic, that the storyline of elected officials flouting their own COVID guidelines in public would have run its course -- or at least that leaders wouldn't let themselves get photographed behaving the way they tell others not to.

But from Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisting pressure to resign amid new revelations of lockdown-era parties to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and two prominent mayors pictured maskless at a football game, the political sensitivities around COVID behavior are clearly as strong as ever.

It's also clear that it doesn't take a British government report or Magic Johnson's Instagram account to pose a threat to a leader's future in this anxious era. The backlash against COVID-era policies -- including some still in place -- is popping up in all manner of races, sometimes in unpredictable ways.