Could the politicization of vaccination and mask wearing lead to a self-inflicted "culling" of the Republican electorate that might have significant long-term electoral consequences?

I think it’s already happened.
But it happened before Covid 19.
It started when The Tea Party, now known as The (American) Conservative Party, basically split off from the (traditional) (GOP) Republican Party.

Would that it were that simply defined. The problem of course is that we are all too intertwined. Republicans and Democrats as yet do not have their own separate Walmarts or public bus lines. And besides such aberrations are not exclusive to either side. There were plenty of gleeful liberals delighted when nearly the entire White House in maskless defiance contracted covid. Herman Cain bit the dust and Chris Christie was forklifted into intensive care while lamenting his previous disdain for precautions. All of those maga hat massed campaign rallies with those defiant maskless dummies crammed into stadiums—what more fuckin portent could there possibly be of what was bound to come? What should one conclude regarding the hapless gullibility of the American people? And what should be your prognosis regarding our success in tackling this disease?

The pandemic has also disproportionally affected the Black community, because of their distrust of the government.

“Could this result in a disproportionately large number of Republicans dying from Covid?”
By itself, it would not make much difference in an election. Why? Because the case fatality rate is only around 1.77%. It would make a difference it the fatality rate were much higher.
Besides, as @filmfann said, Blacks are also disproportionally affected.
There are many complicating factors here.

Yup, they are killing some of their own. They also might have pushed some over to the Democrats if they survive or family members see a relative die.

The states with the most ignorance are heavily red, and losing some Republicans doesn’t change the vote much at all.

Along the lines of a good portion of Black people not getting vaccinated, consider that people seem to miss that red states with low vaccination rates are where most of the Black population lives. I’m not so sure the statistics that are cited are capturing that detail. That visual of a whole state painted red is misleading, especially when considering race. It seems like more Black people are deciding to vaccinate though. Here’s a couple of maps regarding minority populations in America.

https://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/7zqzk2/the_definitive_us_counties_demographic_map_2016/

Well, Florida is leading the country, and it’s a Purple state, so I’d say it’s far too soon to tell which party will come out on top in 2024 due to Covid.

If you have seen a recent map of the US and Delta for August, almost every state is now back in the red danger zone including New York.

Washington (always votes blue), Vermont (always votes blue) and New Hampshire have drastically increased one week case loads. I personally think it’s odd to blame ignorance or politics for the upsurges in a pandemic. Nebraska’s deaths from Covid increased by 400%.

Florida (Purple) and Louisiana have the most critical case loads currently. All graphs below.

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-TRENDS/dgkvlgkrkpb/index.html

@KNOWITALL Florida is leading the nation in what? Cases?

@JLeslie The weekly average of Covid hospitalizations per 100k population.
58.6 is the highest in the US. Second highest is Louisiana at 49.

I’m sure it’s because of tourists, as you’ve mentioned previously. We experience the same rise, as well.

@KNOWITALL I would be curious to know what percentage of Florida covid hospitalizations are residents and how many are tourists.

Florida is right in the middle of the states for vaccination rate, but probably 500,000 of those vaccinated people are not in the state right now, they come back in January.

Florida continues to vaccinate people though. I think it was 280,000 doses last week.

Meanwhile, where I live there are quite a few breakthrough cases and some hospitalized, which of course is upsetting and frustrating to many people here. One woman her husband had COPD and diabetes so he wound up in the hospital, and she couldn’t visit because she was sick too. They think they caught it at Orlando airport, but can’t be sure. I’m not sure where they traveled to/from. They live here where I live.

@JLeslie I would, too, but I’m not finding that information since all states have re-opened state to state travel. I’m not even sure what it would take to close our states, with our respective leaders.

Interestingly, a lot of people come here for the lakes, and those same people go to Florida for the beaches. Good luck to you. (I do show that we are only 10% lower than FL now, for P18–64 fully vaccinated, so it’s better.)

@KNOWITALL Call me an optimist, but I feel like Florida numbers will come down fast in September for a short reprieve. November they will go back up again. As a Floridian I have always tended to avoid going to popular tourist areas during peak season, so I am going to stick with that, just a little more extreme than before. Your area seems to have had a very bad situation for months, and I fear Sturgis will affect you possible. Affect Florida too, but less hopefully.

Did you see the Nashville Indy race yesterday? That city is already crowded and then they had an additional influx of 100,000 people I heard. I don’t know how accurate that was. My husband is supposed to go back to Nashville this weekend. His company still has told people to work remotely (if you remember they all had to report back to work on July 19th, and already they have been sent back home basically). Crazy times.

Is your city requiring masks for kids in school? A few days ago Shelby County (where Memphis is) announced they are requiring masks. A big deal of course. Some people complaining some happy.

@JLeslie No mask mandates here. Public events are being held with no mandates, some are being cancelled. Pretty much just do what you want while people die down the road.

@KNOWITALL Basically like Florida. I feel frustrated with people who just don’t want to curtail their behavior a little if we see cases going up. It shouldn’t matter what the governors say, but obviously it does.