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The Affect Heuristic-Cultural Cognition Theory (AH-CCT) model and the Solution Aversion-based (SA) model both suggest affect, meaning feelings or discrete emotions about a target, mediates associations between ‘culture,’ such as political ideology or cultural biases, and risk responses, such as risk perceptions, protective behaviours, and supportive attitudes towards protective policy. However, the models differ respectively by defining negative affect as directed towards the hazard (‘hazard affect’) or a specific behaviour or policy response (‘solution aversion,’ negative affect about a proposed risk reduction method). We compare these models with longitudinal mediation analysis of U.S. COVID-19 survey data (n = 866 in smallest-sample wave). Solution aversion accounted for more associations of culture with risk perceptions, such as personal risk, collective risk, and risk severity; behaviour and behavioural intentions, regarding mask wearing, avoiding large public gatherings, and vaccination; and support for risk mitigation policies, regarding mask mandates, public gathering bans, and vaccination mandates. Statistically significant direct effects were rare and were mainly for egalitarian cultural bias; indirect effects occurred for egalitarians, political conservatives, and individualists. Implications for further research on risk responses are discussed relative to limited previous work on these affect-mediation models.