We have statistics that show Democrat led states have done better overall than Republican led states. Going just off that, the answer could likely be yes they would have done better.

But that also poses a question, is it the chicken or the egg? Are Democrat governers actually doing anything significantly different on their own, or is it just that their states population was more likely to wear masks and social distance and believe in Covid from the start?

Another big question there of course is whether or not the Dems would have been as hardlined on Covid if they didn't have the GOP opposition. I could totally see a lot of them fapping about going "Well we don't really know yet, don't want to disrupt people" and refusing to make up their minds if they didn't have an enemy to focus that on and paint themselves as opposites of.

Also, we've seen already that even with lockdowns people who want to ignore it will generally just ignore it. Mask mandates have the same thing, people who want to not wear one simply don't and the police (who are anti mask) wont enforce most of this same as most corporations who don't care if they expose their employees or other customers.

Now that's not to say it would have no impact, I'm sure there's quite a few Covid deniers who wear masks just because "obeying the law" is more important to them, but there's still going to be largely significant amounts who don't. Same with how lockdowns do stop people from traveling and going out for business reasons more, even if they're perfectly fine going out to their family or friends or the few open restaurants/stores without any protection or care.

So I think it would certainly be better, but probably still bad enough that we'd remain the laughing stock of the world when it comes to Covid.