Personally, I think there would've been less death, but not dramatically less.
At the end of the day, Republicans and Dems are both capitalist and answer to the same overlords, so they still wouldn't have done what actually needed to be done to properly handle it (AKA do what China did).
I'd say it's probably be better in blue regions and worse in red regions due to political polarization being driven into overdrive with compensation on both sides.
The blues would be more insufferable but would've taken the pandemic more seriously in the initial stages, and the reds would probably dive from the conspiracy-minded stuff they're at now to open hog rebellion at the naked attempt of the communists to take away their freedom to eat at the cheesecake factory.