The places that have borne the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak are densely populated urban and suburban areas almost solely represented by congressional Democrats, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center.

The coronavirus death toll in the United States, which surpassed 100,000 this week, has been concentrated in just a few places – mainly large metropolitan areas with relatively large shares of ethnic and racial minorities.

The Pew report – which reflects reported coronavirus deaths through May 20, compiled by Johns Hopkins University – finds that nearly 25% of all U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19 have been in just 12 congressional districts in New York City, all represented by Democrats.

Philip Klinkner, the James S. Sherman professor of government at Hamilton College, tells U.S. News that while political affiliation has nothing to do with whether a person contracts the coronavirus, "Democratic voters are very concentrated in urban districts, and certain urban areas have seen much worse outbreaks."

Americans are already polarized over the coronavirus, with Republicans and Democrats divided over their willingness to adopt preventive health measures, their support of President Donald Trump's handling of the crisis and the appropriate time to reopen the economy.

But the fact that the virus has hit largely urban, Democratic areas the hardest, Klinkner says, "seems to be exacerbating this political divide."

"Given that the pandemic requires a governmental response and we have very starkly different views about what the government can and can't do, you're always probably going to get polarized," says Klinkner, who wrote about the subject for Vox in early May. "This just adds another layer onto it, in that you've got this differential impact. And so essentially, Democratic areas are being much more hard hit by this."

Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, says this divide might have political implications later this year, particularly as it relates to the densely populated suburbs.

"The president's deeply inadequate response to this pandemic and the many deaths we have seen will be central issues for voters in 2020," says Farnsworth, author of "Presidential Communication and Character," and other books about the presidency. "The health and economic impacts of COVID-19 will energize those same suburban voters who were so effective in creating a midterm wave for the Democrats in the 2018 midterms. Suburban anger over Trump two years ago, though, will seem small in comparison to the anger over Trump during COVID."

Approximately two-thirds of residents of the districts hit hardest by the outbreak live in urban or dense suburban areas, according to the report. Residents in those districts are also more likely to be nonwhite.

"The most surprising aspect of this report is that the number of deaths by congressional district appears to drop steadily as the concentration of white residents increases," says Connor Maxwell, a senior policy analyst for race and ethnicity policy at the Center for American Progress.

"This suggests that communities with more white residents have far greater access to testing, treatment, remote work, private vehicles and single-family homes than communities of color and that coronavirus is not the 'great equalizer' that many pundits purported it to be."