By Eric Tucker and Emily Swanson| The Associated Press

October 2, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans are concerned at least somewhat by the potential for foreign interference in November’s election, and a majority believes that Russia sought in 2016 to influence the outcome of that race, according to a new poll that underscores the anxiety and political divisions heading into the final weeks of the presidential contest.

The poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about three-quarters of Americans are at least somewhat concerned about interference, whether in the form of tampering with voting systems and election results, stealing data from candidates or parties or influencing the candidates themselves or the way voters think about them. Still, no more than half are “extremely” or “very” concerned about each of those possibilities.

The poll was taken as intelligence officials warn of ongoing efforts by foreign adversaries to interfere in American politics, including a concerted Russian effort to denigrate Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last month that Russia was continuing to use social media to try to influence the election, though he said officials had not seen targeting of voting system infrastructure. Officials also say they don’t have intelligence that foreign countries are targeting the vote-by-mail process.

The extent of concerns about 2020 election interference breaks largely along partisan lines, with 68% of Biden supporters saying they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about foreign countries influencing how Americans perceive the candidates, according to the poll. Among supporters of President Donald Trump, 30% are extremely or very concerned, with 29% saying they are somewhat concerned.

Foreign interference, or influence, could theoretically take many shapes. Besides meddling with voting systems — which officials say would be hard to do in such a way as to materially affect results — or shaping voters’ perception of the candidates, there are also potential concerns about stealing information from a candidate or party or influencing candidates themselves.

Dawn Jackson, 61, who is retired and lives in Gilbert, Arizona, and plans to vote for Trump, said she is not exceedingly concerned.

“My opinion is countries have interfered in elections for a long, long time, and I am positive the United States has done their share of trying to interfere in other countries’ elections,” Jackson said. “So what goes around comes around.”

But Nancy Camfield, 68, of Frankfort, Illinois, who supports Biden, said she is among those concerned about foreign influence through social media, especially because intelligence officials have been sounding the alarms.

“When former FBI directors and intelligence agency employees say that they know that’s going on, and Trump denies it, well, I’d rather believe the experts,” Camfield said.

Austin Wright, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School, said it was striking that Americans are not more concerned by the threat of foreign interference given the range of dangers. He suggested that may have to do with domestic concerns currently occupying public attention, and with the fact that some American leaders — including Trump — are themselves working to undermine confidence in the election.

“We don’t have to worry about foreign countries doing that anymore. We have plenty of actors who are more than happy to completely undermine our democratic institutions with the short-term goal of four more years of the Trump administration,” Wright said.

The concerns are heightened by Russian interference in 2016, when intelligence operatives stole Democratic emails that were then published online in the weeks before the election and when Russians used social media to push out content aimed at sowing discord in America.

A majority of Americans, or 69%, believe Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 election. About 9 in 10 Biden supporters feel that way, compared with roughly half of Trump backers.

Michael Asmar, 53, a software engineer from Vernon, Connecticut, who supports Trump, said he didn’t doubt that foreign countries were trying to interfere in the election. But he said he thought they were doing so “on their own terms” without any solicitation from Trump.

“With the fully connected world we have now with Facebook and all that, I think it’s very easy for anybody to really sway opinions,” Asmar said. “I think that certainly Russia, China — anybody, really — looking to meddle in an election could do that.”

The August intelligence assessment that outlined ongoing Russian interference also noted that China regards Trump as unpredictable, prefers that he lose to Biden and has been working to shape the U.S. policy environment.

Trump has seized on that finding as he and several other senior administration officials have tried to make the case that Beijing is the more assertive adversary. Trump has repeatedly maintained that China is working to defeat him, though Microsoft noted in a blog post last month that among those targeted by Chinese state-backed hackers are people associated with the Biden campaign.

Overall, 46% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s relationship with Russia, compared to 26% who approve. An additional 27% say they neither approve nor disapprove.

A slim majority of Trump supporters, 55%, approve of how Trump is dealing with Russia, with just 7% disapproving. Among Biden backers, 84% say they disapprove.

Trump has said he has been tougher than anyone on Russia, but Democrats have criticized him for what they see as his failure to publicly call out Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference or to even embrace the intelligence community’s findings that Russia meddled in 2016.

Trump supporters are somewhat more likely to support strengthening ties with Russia over weakening them, 54% to 42%, while three-quarters of Biden supporters endorse weaker ties with Russia.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,053 adults was conducted Sept. 11-14 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/.

By Sarah Burnett and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

April 6, 2020

CHICAGO (AP) — Americans in overwhelming numbers are actively avoiding others as much as possible and taking additional steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows how concerns about infection have grown sharply in the past six weeks.

The survey finds Americans are increasingly isolating, washing their hands and avoiding touching their face. Large portions of the country are confronting lay-offs and pay cuts and are adjusting to kids forced home from school and day care amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended American life and the nation’s economy.

Half of Americans now say they are extremely or very worried that they or a family member will be infected by the virus. That compares with 31% who said the same in mid-March and 22% who said so in February. Another 34% are somewhat worried, while just 16% say they are not worried.

The spike in concern comes as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, has grown to about 1.3 million worldwide and about 340,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University. Containment efforts have canceled in-person classes for most of the country’s students, thrown more than 10 million people out of work and put 90% of the population under stay-at-home orders.

Confronted by the seriousness of the pandemic, Americans are more likely than they were in mid-March to report taking protective steps. Today, 94% of Americans say they are staying away from large groups, up from 68%. Somewhat fewer, though still an overwhelming majority, 86%, say they are avoiding other people as much as possible.

Most states are now under a statewide stay-at-home order, while in the remaining states some orders have been issued at the city or county level. But there are not wide differences in behavior based on where a person lives, according to the poll. Americans in states that were not under a statewide stay-at-home order on or before March 26 were about as likely as Americans in states that were under such a directive to say they were avoiding contact with others.

“To me it was just common sense,” said Richard Walker, 62, of St. Augustine, Florida, who said he and his family began making changes weeks before Gov. Ron DeSantis last Wednesday issued a statewide stay-at-home order.

Walker said that he and his wife are no longer watching their 3-year-old granddaughter once a week and that their 33-year-old daughter is doing their grocery shopping. To celebrate his son’s birthday on Tuesday, the family gathered in the son’s driveway — staying at least 10 feet (3 meters) apart — and sang “Happy Birthday.” The party continued later via FaceTime, a video phone app.

“It’s all you can do right now,” Walker said.

The change in behavior isn’t limited to staying at home or avoiding groups. Ninety-two percent of Americans say they are washing their hands more frequently and 70% are avoiding touching their face. About half, 52%, now report stocking up on extra food, compared with 35% who said they were doing so earlier in March. Still, just 16% say they are consulting with a health care provider.

While the public’s concern has risen overall, there still remain partisan differences.

Republicans are far less worried than Democrats about themselves or a relative being infected with the coronavirus. Just 35% are extremely or very worried, compared with 61% of Democrats who are highly concerned. Another 4 in 10 Republicans are somewhat worried, and about another quarter are not worried.

Still, the share of Republicans who are very worried has grown from just 21% in AP-NORC’s mid-March poll.

The widespread closing of schools and day cares also has caused concern. Among parents with a child in school or day care, nearly all, 96%, say it has closed. About a third of them say they are extremely or very concerned about their child falling behind academically, with another third somewhat concerned.

Mia Morris, of Atlanta, said she and her kids, ages 18 and 16, are doing the best they can to adjust to online learning. Morris, 41, is in a technical school program that has moved to online classes, and she watches a 7-year-old who is navigating first grade.

“It’s hard because we’re not used to it, but we all pull together and help each other,” Morris said. And when they still don’t know the answers, there’s another option: “We go to Google a lot.”

The closing of businesses and global economic uncertainty have widely impacted working Americans. Among those who were employed prior to the outbreak, 23% say they or a household member has already been laid off, 38% scheduled for fewer hours, 27% taken unpaid time off and 26% had wages or salary reduced.

In all, about half of workers have experienced at least one form of lost household income. Those with lower incomes and without college degrees are especially likely to say households have been hit by layoffs.

Kyle Beason, of Bowling Green, Ohio, said he and his girlfriend both have had their hours slashed at the manufacturing plant where they work, from 40 hours per week to a low of 24 hours because the appliance makers who buy the parts they produce aren’t placing as many orders. The 26-year-old said the couple is still able to pay the bills, but that could change if things don’t improve soon.

“I’m hoping that people do what they need to do — stay home as much as they can or stay away from people — so we can get over it,” Beason said.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,057 adults was conducted March 26-29 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.

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AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/

By Elana Schor and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

May 13, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — As the nation’s houses of worship weigh how and when to resume in-person gatherings while coronavirus stay-at-home orders ease in some areas, a new poll points to a partisan divide over whether restricting those services violates religious freedom.

Questions about whether states and localities could restrict religious gatherings to protect public health during the pandemic while permitting other secular activities have swirled for weeks and resulted in more than a dozen legal challenges that touch on freedom to worship.

President Donald Trump’s administration has sided with two churches contesting their areas’ pandemic-related limits on in-person and drive-in services — a stance that appeals to his conservative base, according to the new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll found Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say prohibiting in-person services during the coronavirus outbreak violates religious freedom, 49% to 21%.

A majority of Democrats, 58%, say they think in-person religious services should not be allowed at all during the pandemic, compared with 34% of Republicans who say the same. Among Republicans, most of the remainder — 48% — think they should be allowed with restrictions, while 15% think they should be allowed without restrictions. Just 5% of Democrats favor unrestricted in-person worship, and 38% think it should be permitted with restrictions.

Caught between the poles of the debate are Americans like Stanley Maslowski, 83, a retired Catholic priest in St. Paul, Minn., and an independent who voted for Trump in 2016 but is undecided this year. Maslowski was of two minds about a court challenge by Kentucky churches that successfully exempted in-person religious services from the temporary gathering ban issued by that state’s Democratic governor.

“On the one hand, I think it restricts religious freedom,” Maslowski said of the Kentucky ban. “On the other hand, I’m not sure if some of that restriction is warranted because of the severity of the contagious virus. It’s a whole new situation.”

The unprecedented circumstance of a highly contagious virus whose spread was traced back, in some regions, to religious gatherings prompted most leaders across faiths to suspend in-person worship during the early weeks of the pandemic. But it wasn’t long before worship restrictions prompted legal skirmishes from Kansas to California, with several high-profile cases championed by conservative legal nonprofits that have allied with the Trump administration’s past elevation of religious liberty

One of those conservative nonprofits, the First Liberty Institute, spearheaded a Tuesday letter asking federal lawmakers to extend liability protections from coronavirus-related negligence lawsuits to religious organizations in their next coronavirus relief legislation.

Shielding houses of worship from potential legal liability would “reassure ministries that voluntarily closed that they can reopen in order to resume serving their communities,” the First Liberty-led letter states.

Among the hundreds of faith leaders signing the letter were several conservative evangelical Christian supporters of Trump, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the president of the Coalition for Jewish Values.

John Inazu, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the First Amendment, said the letter’s warning of legal peril for religious organizations that reopen their doors amid the virus appeared inflated. But he predicted further legal back-and-forth over whether eased-up gathering limits treat religious gatherings neutrally.

“I would think the greater litigation risk is not from private citizens suing churches but from churches suing municipalities whose reopening policies potentially disadvantage churches relative to businesses and other social institutions,” Inazu said by email. “Some of those suits will have merit, and some won’t.”

Drive-through or drive-in services have grown in popularity during the virus as ways for houses of worship to continue welcoming the faithful while attempting to keep them at a reasonable social distance. Local limits on those services prompted high-profile legal challenges, including one of the two where the Justice Department weighed in on behalf of churches. The new poll also points to a partisan split on that issue.

Fifty-nine percent of Republicans say prohibitions on drive-in services while the outbreak is ongoing are a violation of religious freedom, compared with 30% of Democrats. Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to say that drive-through religious services should be allowed without restriction, 38% to 18%.

Most Republicans and Democrats think drive-in services should be restricted, with few thinking they shouldn’t be allowed at all.

Daniel Bennett, an associate political science professor at John Brown University, pointed to high support for Trump among white evangelicals — whom the poll showed are also more likely than others to say in-person worship should be allowed during the virus — as a possible driver of Democratic sentiment in the opposite direction.

Religious freedom can grow “more partisan when you have these white evangelicals who are such a key part of the Trump administration’s voting bloc,” said Bennett, who wrote a book on conservative Christian legal organizations. “It’s a gut reaction to say, ‘oh, you’re for this — I have to be against this’.”

Bennett pointed to a bigger question that predated, and promises to outlast, the virus: “How do we communicate these issues in terms of religious freedom while not alienating people for partisan reasons?”

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Swanson reported from Washington.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,002 adults was conducted April 30-May 4 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

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AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By Seth Borenstein and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

October 22, 2020

Americans have lost trust across the board in the people and institutions informing them about the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

The poll finds that the percentage of people saying they trust COVID-19 information from their state or local governments, the news media, social media and their friends and family has dropped significantly compared to similar questions in April. A large chunk of Americans say they find it hard to know if coronavirus information is accurate.

Just 16% say they trust coronavirus information from President Donald Trump a great deal or quite a bit, down from 23% in April. And 64% now say they trust Trump only a little or not at all on COVID-19. Only social media, at 72%, is less trusted.

Even though Paula Randolph opposes the Republican president, she said she trusted the White House on coronavirus information when the pandemic started.

“Because of the history of the presidency of the United States, it was no matter what, they’ll tell us the facts,” said Randolph, a 49-year-old disabled woman in Dixon, Missouri. “It became a circus, and I no longer trust it.”

She even remembers the day she lost trust in the White House on the coronavirus: April 30. Trump, who by that point had been promoting an anti-malaria drug unproven on COVID-19, had a press conference on the pandemic that day, calling his response to the virus “really spectacular.”

The family doctor ranks highest when it comes to whom Americans trust for information about the coronavirus, with 53% saying they trust their health provider a great deal or quite a bit. After their doctors, 36% said they have high trust in federal health officials at agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, 26% in state or local governments, 18% in news media, 17% in family and friends, 16% in Trump, 12% in search engines and just 6% in social media.

Experts in health, science and political communication said they see three reasons for the drop in trust: fear, politics and the public watching science messily forming in real time.

“The fact that trust dropped in all categories, including health care providers and family and friends, speaks to a really worried society that doesn’t feel safe,” said David Ropeik, a retired Harvard instructor on risk communication.

The World Health Organization calls the flood of good and bad information on the coronavirus an “infodemic.”

Thirty percent of Americans say it is difficult finding factual information about COVID-19. While 48% said they can tell the difference between coronavirus fact and opinion, fewer, 35%, say it’s easy to know if that information is true. About as many, 36%, find that difficult, with the remainder saying it’s neither easy nor difficult.

Joycelyn Mire, a 71-year-old retired medical financial manager in Louisiana, said she doesn’t trust doctors and definitely not the news media for coronavirus information. But she does trust Trump because “I tend to agree with his opinions.” Most of all, the Trump supporter said she trusts her own research.

Even as Colorado State University student Jack Hermanson’s trust in Trump and federal agencies like the CDC went down, he said he had to trust someone. So he relies on what leaders at school and work tell him.

“The root of a lot of this is fear,” said Lisa Gualtieri, a professor of health and community medicine at Tufts University Medical School.

America is watching in real time as the science emerges, like seeing sausage being made, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania communications professor. She said that Trump added to the confusion by hyping the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus, even as reputable scientists, mainstream media and studies call it unproven.

“The public now has multiple cues that say, ‘Gee, the science seems to be really confusing at this end. I’m not sure who to trust here,’” Jamieson said. Because of what she perceives as political pressure, she changed from trusting agencies like the CDC to trusting individual scientists, such as top federal infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.

While Democrats worry that pressure on science agencies makes them less trustworthy, Republicans distrust them, saying they’re trying to make Trump look bad, said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M communications professor.

Mitch Spencer, a 59-year-old from Iowa who is retired from the post office and the military, said over the past several months he had “less trust in the government and more trust in just regular news.”

A political independent and self-described moderate, Spencer said he watched Fauci say one thing and Trump’s team say something else. He trusts Fauci, not Trump, saying the president lies frequently.

The poll found that 37% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats say they trust the president only a little or not at all on the pandemic.

Spencer said it’s harder to find information on whether his grandchild should return to school or if a vaccine is safe than whether to wear masks. Overall, just 35% of Americans said it was very or somewhat easy to find the information they need on vaccine safety and 39% on safety of reopening school, the poll showed.

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The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll of 1,121 adults was conducted Sept. 15-25 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/.

By Randall Chase and Emily Swanson

May 11, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Americans disapprove of protests against restrictions aimed at preventing the spread the coronavirus, according to a new poll that also finds the still-expansive support for such limits — including restaurant closures and stay-at-home orders — has dipped in recent weeks.

The new survey from the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 55% of Americans disapprove of the protests that have popped up in some states as some Americans begin chafing at public health measures that have decimated the global economy. Thirty-one percent approve of the demonstrations.

Texas hair salon owner Shelley Luther was sentenced to seven days in jail last week after refusing to apologize to a judge for opening her salon in defiance of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency orders. She was released less than 48 hours later after Abbott removed jail as a punishment for defying virus safeguards.

In Michigan, thousands of people rallied outside the state capitol last month to protest Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s restrictions. Hundreds returned two weeks later, some of them armed, to demonstrate inside the statehouse.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to disapprove of such protests, 67% to 51%. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 25% of Democrats say they approve. Only 8% said public protests, marches and rallies should be unrestricted during the outbreak, while 41% think they should be allowed only with restrictions and 50% think they should not be allowed at all.

Dee Miner, 71, of Fremont, California, said she disapproves of the protests, but also feels people have the right to express themselves.

“We have to have the right to protest, but I have to tell you, seeing those people with those weapons at the statehouse in Michigan was pretty disturbing,” said Miner, a Democrat and retired dental office manager. “I felt sorry for the legislators having to work with that angry mob in the lobby. It seemed like it was just pure intimidation.”

Adam Blann, 37, of Carson City, Nevada, said he does not personally favor the protests, but does not believe they should be restricted.

“Its a tough situation,” said Blann, a Republican-leaning voter who works in the natural gas industry. “But I also think that one of the reasons we live in a great country is that we have freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to protest.”

As some states have begun to slowly ease restrictions on businesses and individuals, the poll finds that 71% of Americans favor requiring people to stay in their homes except for essential errands. Support for such measures is down slightly from 80% two weeks earlier.

Similarly, 67% of Americans now say they favor requiring bars and restaurants to close, down from 76% in the earlier poll. The poll also suggested dipping support for requiring Americans to limit gatherings to 10 people or fewer (from 82% to 75%) and requiring postponement of nonessential medical care (from 68% to 57%).

Mark Roberts, a retired transportation worker in Abingdon, Virginia, said he’s going about his business despite Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home order. Roberts said people in his southwestern Virginia community are driving the short distance into neighboring Bristol, Tennessee, to patronize restaurants open there.

“People from Virginia have been crossing over into Tennessee to eat and just get out, you know, and do things, and Virginia is losing out on it,” said the 61-year-old Republican.

Among Republicans like Roberts, the share supporting stay-at-home orders dipped from 70% in late April to 57% in the latest poll. The share supporting other measures also dropped, from 75% to 63% for limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people and from 70% to 53% for closing bars and restaurants.

Among Democrats, 84% favor stay-at-home orders, down slightly from 91% in the earlier poll. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats favor barring gatherings of more than 10 people, and 79% support bar and restaurant closures, about the same as in the previous poll.

Blann, the Nevada resident, said he didn’t mind officials imposing certain restrictions for a short period of time, but fears the potential of authorities being unwilling to roll back some of their newly declared powers.

“I do think the government should respond to allowing people to make more of their own personal choices without legal repercussions,” said Blann, who said he doesn’t expect to find himself in a crowded bar anytime soon, but is looking forward to being able to go back to church.

The poll found most Americans in favor of some kind of restriction on in-person worship, with 42% saying that should be allowed with restriction and 48% that it should not be allowed at all.

Marilou Grainger, a retired nurse anesthetist and registered Republican in Washington, Missouri, said she’s torn between the need to take precautions against the virus while also allowing people to make their own decisions.

“I think we should still be under a bit of quarantine, especially people who are 60 or older,” said Grainger, 67, who believes the jury is still out on whether lockdowns and stay-at-home orders have been effective in stemming the spread of the virus.

“Did we make a mistake? Did we totally annihilate our economy, or did we actually save some people issuing this quarantine?” she asked.

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Chase reported from Dover, Delaware.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,002 adults was conducted April 30-May 4 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

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Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/