The spectacular electoral gains of the Greens and the Green Liberals at the 2019 Swiss elections have often been explained by the high salience of the climate issue (e.g., Tresch et al., 2020). Such an explanation is in line with issue ownership theory (Budge & Farlie 1983 ; Petrocik 1996), which expects voters to cast their ballot for the party with the best reputation on the most salient issue at the time of the election. Since the elections, however, voters’ problem concerns have changed: the climate issue has lost some of its importance, whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a top priority for many voters. In this paper, we analyze which parties stand to win or to lose from voters’ changing issue priorities. On the one hand, the declining salience of the climate issue should lead to a loss of popularity for the green parties. On the other, as a new, and not previously owned issue, the COVID-19 pandemic might not produce clear winners. If anything, governing parties might benefit, given that the pandemic has generally strengthened the executive. To address these questions, we draw on the 2019 and 2020 panel waves conducted in the framework of the Swiss Election Study (Selects) among a representative sample of Swiss voters.