By Josh Boak and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

April 24, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — One out of every four American adults say someone in their household has lost a job to the coronavirus pandemic, but the vast majority expect those former jobs will return once the crisis passes, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The economic devastation writ by COVID-19 is clear: 26.4 million people have lost their job in the past five weeks, millions of homeowners are delaying mortgage payments and food banks are seeing lines of cars that stretch for miles. Forty-six percent of all Americans say their household has experienced some form of income loss from layoffs, reduced hours, unpaid leave or salary reductions.

And yet, the survey finds a majority of Americans still feel positive about their personal finances. One possible reason: Among those whose households have experienced a layoff, 78% believe those former jobs will definitely or probably return. Another positive sign: The percentage of workers who say their household has lost a source of income is not significantly different from a few weeks ago.

Seventy-one percent of Americans now describe the national economy as poor, up from 60% three weeks ago and 33% in January. At the same time, 64% call their personal financial situation good — a number that remains largely unchanged since before the virus outbreak began.

Some of the resiliency can likely be traced to the nearly $2 trillion rescue package enacted by Congress that expanded jobless benefits, extended forgivable loans to small businesses and provided a government check to most Americans — money that has helped stabilize some families’ finances.

Skylar Banks, 24, used her 2019 tax refund and a separate government check for $3,000 to prepay six months of rent on her house. Her plan: to ensure her family’s housing is secure in case coronavirus infections spike in a second wave later this year and the nation’s economy gets worse.

“We’re not sure how many people actually have COVID-19,” said Banks, who lives in Dyersville, Tennessee, and works at Walmart. “If they open everything back up, we have no clue what is going to happen.”

Indeed, the country is split on whether the economy will rebound over the next year. Forty-five percent expect it will improve, while 37% say it will worsen. Just 17% expect it to stay the same.

The survey found Americans overwhelmingly support stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus — 61% described efforts in their area as about right, while 26% said they didn’t go far enough — even as those actions have forced an untold number of businesses to close.

Lower income households and those with less education appear especially hard hit by job losses – 29% of those whose families earn less than $50,000 a year said their household experienced a job loss, compared with 22% of those who make more. Similarly, 28% of those without a college degree experienced a household layoff, while just 19% with a degree said the same.

As the crisis drags on, 22% of Americans have started to miss payments on housing or debts, the survey found. That includes 11% of Americans who have unpaid rent or mortgage bills, 11% who have missed a credit card payment and 19% who were unable to pay another type of bill. Some were unable to pay more than one kind of bill.

More than half of Americans, 58%, think the government has not done enough to help small businesses, while 53% say the same of aid to individuals. Meanwhile, about 4 in 10 think too much assistance has been offered to larger corporations. The poll was conducted before Congress passed a new bill worth nearly $500 billion aimed at helping small businesses and hospitals.

Brandon Reynolds, 45, resells vintage toys, jewelry and artwork online. The Houston resident’s earnings have been solid enough to cover the monthly rent of his roommate, a barber who cannot work because of stay-at-home orders. But Reynolds has only three months of inventory, and he might not be able to restock if the pandemic keeps thrift stores and flea markets closed.

“I’m definitely not ready to be running around in the streets with a lot of people,” he said. “Not enough people are taking this seriously.”

Overall, 52% of Americans say they approve of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy. Trump’s overall approval rating stands at 42%. Even though 53% of Republicans said national economic conditions were poor, 88% of them approve of Trump’s economic stewardship. Twenty-three percent of Democrats approve, even as 90% call the economy poor.

Monique Hewan, a nursing student in Cold Spring, Kentucky, said the outbreak only appears to have intensified political tensions as some Republican governors make plans to allow some businesses to reopen and to ease other restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.

“It all depends on whether you’re red and blue as to how you think about it,” she said. “The calls for older people to die for the sake of the economy — it’s just insanity.”

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,057 adults was conducted April 16-20 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 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.

___

Online:

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

By Julie Pace and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

September 17, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than seven weeks before Election Day, most Americans are deeply pessimistic about the direction of the country and skeptical of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Roughly 7 in 10 Americans think the nation is on the wrong track, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It’s an assessment that poses a challenge for Trump as he urges voters to stay the course and reward him with four more years in office instead of handing the reins of government to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump’s argument to voters hinges in part on persuading Americans that the pandemic, which has killed nearly 200,000 people in the U.S., is receding. Yet just 39% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the outbreak.

“Clearly it has been mishandled,” said Don Smith, 77, of Kannapolis, North Carolina. Smith, an independent who plans to vote for Biden in November, said he’s been particularly troubled by what he sees as Trump’s efforts to sideline public health experts and scientists.

Most Americans have more favorable views of health officials than of the Republican president as they have throughout the pandemic. Seventy-eight percent say they have some or great confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency at the forefront of crafting recommendations for how Americans can best protect themselves from the highly contagious coronavirus.

Yet the White House has repeatedly sought to assert more control over the CDC. And on Wednesday, Trump publicly undercut CDC Director Robert Redfield on two crucial matters: the likely timeline for vaccine availability and the effectiveness of wearing face masks.

Redfield told lawmakers that a vaccine — if approved, and none has been to this point — would likely not be widely available to Americans until at least the middle of next year. Trump disputed that, saying a vaccine could begin to be rolled out as soon as next month — just ahead of the presidential election — and be broadly available soon after.

Trump was also at odds with Redfield over masks, which the president says he supports but rarely wears. Redfield told lawmakers that wearing a mask is “more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.” No way, the president said, declaring the opposite was true.

Following the public rebuke and a private phone call with Trump, Redfield tried to backtrack from some of his statements, saying the questions in the congressional hearing were unclear.

Through his words and actions, Trump has increasingly been trying to convey the impression that the nation is moving past the pandemic. He’s regularly traveling around the country for campaign events, speaking to tightly packed crowds. Though he largely held outdoor events through the summer, he headlined two large indoor events over the weekend. Public health officials say transmission rates are higher indoors versus outdoors.

Trump says of the pandemic: “I really believe we’re rounding the corner, and I believe that strongly.”

Overall, Trump’s approval rating sits at 43%, well within the narrow range it has been throughout his first term, and slightly higher than it was earlier in the summer. The president is propped up by support from 86% of Republicans, though a somewhat lower percentage of GOP voters — 75% — back his handling of the pandemic.

Despite Trump’s unfailingly optimistic words about the pandemic, the majority of Americans — 69% — say they are still at least somewhat worried about themselves or their family members being infected with the virus. That number is lower than it was in July, when infection rates in several states were spiking.

Assessments of the state of the pandemic are sharply split along partisan lines, reflecting the ways that it has become tied up in the nation’s deep partisan divisions. Eighty-three percent of Democrats say they are at least somewhat concerned about the virus, compared with 55% of Republicans.

Still, those findings show the risks for Trump in downplaying the virus in the campaign’s final weeks, given how many Americans — including many in his own party — still view COVID-19 as a threat.

Biden has vowed to prioritize the views of public health officials if he wins, going so far as to say he would be willing to effectively shut down states again if that were the recommendation from medical advisers. The former vice president also regularly wears a mask and has largely limited his campaign travel to small, socially distanced events.

During an event on Wednesday, Biden warned Americans that the country could be heading for a “very dangerous autumn,” citing models showing cases could spike again later this year.

As Americans also weigh their options in upcoming congressional elections, few have high praise for the legislative branch. Just 5% say they are highly confident in Congress, while 47% have some confidence; 48% say they are not confident.

Lawmakers have spent months wrangling over how to proceed over another coronavirus relief package that could help small businesses, schools and state and local governments. But Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on the specifics and the overall price tag, and it appears likely they could depart Washington for a preelection recess without authorizing any more money.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,108 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 4.0 percentage points.

___

Online:

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

By Matthew Barakat and Ben Finley | The Associated Press

September 29, 2020

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — In a state where Confederate monuments have stood for more than a century and have recently become a flashpoint in the national debate over racial injustice, Virginians remain about evenly divided on whether the statues should stay or go, according to a new poll.

The poll conducted this month by Hampton University and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 46% support removal of Confederate statues and 42% oppose removal. A similar divide emerged over the question of changing the names of schools, streets and military bases named after Confederate leaders, with 44% in support and 43% opposed.

“I just can’t really understand why anyone doesn’t see those monuments for what they actually are,” said Joanne Bach, 59, of South Chesterfield, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Richmond.

“They were put up as a reminder for Blacks to stay in their place … that you live in a white-dominated world,” she said. “And I find them to be intimidating.”

Bach works in customer service in the food industry. She said her great- grandfather fought for the Confederacy and was captured at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg.

“But it doesn’t, in any way, make me feel like I’m a daughter of the Confederacy who thinks, ‘Gee, I wish we’d have won the war,’” she said.

The question of the Confederacy’s legacy in Virginia is particularly pointed given that Richmond is the former Confederate capital. Protests in Richmond and other parts of the state this year have at times targeted longstanding Confederate memorials.

City officials have removed most of the statues from Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue. But the most prominent one, a towering tribute to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, still stands pending resolution of a lawsuit. The statue is owned by the state.

Clayton Collins, 84, a retired electrician from outside Petersburg, also about 25 miles south of Richmond, said he strongly opposes removing the monuments because they’re “part of history.”

Unlike Bach, Collins said the statues are “not intimidating anybody.”

“It’s just the same thing as putting up the crucifixion of Christ or the manger scene,” he said, adding that the efforts to remove monuments are part of a broader effort by “socialists” who “want to do away with the past” and ban conservatives from speaking at universities.

The 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that left a counterprotester dead had its origins in a city debate over whether to remove Confederate statues. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden cited the Charlottesville rally as the reason he entered the race, after President Donald Trump defended both protesters and counterprotesters who clashed there.

While the poll found a nearly even split on the question of Confederate statues and names, it found more consensus on whether the Confederate flag should be banned from display on government property, with 60% supporting a ban and 29% opposed.

On another topic, the poll found only about 1 in 4 Virginians support keeping schools in the state completely closed to in-person learning.

While the vast majority favor a return to in-person learning, the poll also shows that most believe adjustments have to be made to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the poll, only 27% of Virginians say K-12 schools should not reopen at all, and 22% say the same about colleges.

On the other side, only 11% believe K-12 schools should open as usual, and only 10% believe the same for colleges.

Data from the Virginia Department of Education shows that about 80% of the commonwealth’s 1.3 million students are learning in fully virtual environments.

The poll was conducted Sept. 8-14, in the midst of a special session during which lawmakers approved legislation to prohibit the use of police chokeholds, restrict law enforcement’s use of no-knock search warrants, and make it easier to decertify police officers guilty of misconduct. But the legislature rejected a provision that would make it easier to sue for alleged misconduct.

The poll showed strong support for some of the legislature’s measures, with 71% supporting a chokehold ban and 66% supporting a ban on no-knock warrants. Reducing funding for law-enforcement agencies, however, received support from only 23%.

The poll also indicates that unprecedented numbers of Virginians plan to take advantage of expanded vote-by-mail options. Roughly a third of those polled said they planned to vote by mail. Only 5% said they had done so regularly in the past.

None of the political figures included in the survey received a favorable rating of 50% or higher. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who is seeking his third term in the U.S. Senate, is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 35%. His Republican opponent, political newcomer Daniel Gade, is viewed favorably by 25% and unfavorably by 8%, with 67% not familiar enough with him to say how they feel.

In the presidential race, views on Biden are about equally split, while Trump is viewed negatively by 6 in 10.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam also had a net-unfavorable rating, at 42-48.

The poll was conducted by mail, with the option for respondents to take the survey online or by phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

___

Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.

By Emily Swanson and Josh Boak | The Associated Press

April 2, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that positive views of the nation’s economy are down dramatically just since January, with 60% of Americans now saying the economy is “poor” after 67% called it “good” in January.

The poll also finds wide support for several measures taken to prop up the economy, especially those aimed at helping individuals, small businesses and hospitals.

Among other findings in the survey, conducted March 26-29 among American adults:

— In total, about half who were employed prior to the outbreak have experienced at least one type of income loss, whether that happened to them or someone else in the household. Layoffs were reported in 33% of such homes, scaled back work hours in 38%, unpaid time off in 27% and a pay cut in 26%. Thirty-three percent of people in households making less than $50,000 a year reported that they or another household member had been laid off, compared with 18% of those making more.

— The poll finds widespread support for many elements of the $2.2 trillion relief package passed by Congress last month. About 9 in 10 favor the federal government providing funding to small businesses and hospitals, while about 8 in 10 favor lump sum payments to Americans, suspending evictions and foreclosures, increased unemployment benefits and suspended student loan payments. About 6 in 10 favor funding for public transportation agencies.

— Those measures enjoy broad bipartisan support, but Republicans are more tepid in their support of some of the measures than Democrats. For example, 67% of Democrats and 38% of Republicans call themselves strongly, rather than just somewhat, in favor of increased unemployment benefits. There are similar gaps in strong support for suspending evictions and foreclosures, suspending student loan payments and making lump sum payments to Americans.

— Americans hold more mixed views on some other relief efforts. While 36% favor funding going to airlines, 32% are opposed and 31% don’t have an opinion. The overall numbers are similar when it comes to funding provided to tourism industries. Republicans are more likely to favor than oppose payments to airlines, 46% to 24%, while Democrats are somewhat more opposed than in favor, 39% to 29%.

— The poll also shows about 8 in 10 Americans are in favor of using emergency powers to order private manufacturers to produce medical equipment. Eighty-four percent of Democrats and 78% of Republicans favor taking that step.

— Nearly all Americans say they’re at least somewhat concerned about the impact of the virus outbreak on the national economy, including close to three-quarters who call themselves very or extremely concerned. In particular, the vast majority — 84% — say they’re very concerned about the impact on small businesses and more than half — 56% — say the same about the impact on nonprofit organizations.

— In general, Americans are less concerned about the impact on large corporations — only 28% call themselves very concerned, although 35% say they are somewhat concerned. Democrats and Republicans have similar levels of concern about the impact on small businesses, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to have at least some concern about the impact on large corporations, 71% to 55%.

___

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.

___

Online:

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

By Nicholas Riccardi and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

April 27, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ support for mail-in voting has jumped amid concerns about the safety of polling places during the coronavirus pandemic, but a wide partisan divide suggests President Donald Trump’s public campaign against vote by mail may be resonating with his Republican backers.

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds Democrats are now much more likely than Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail, 47% to 29%.

In 2018, about half as many Democrats were in favor, and there was little difference in the views of Democrats and Republicans on the question.

The survey also found a partisan divide on support for no-excuse absentee voting, the system in place in most states, including almost all the top presidential battlegrounds, even as a majority of Americans say they favor that practice.

The increased partisanship in the debate over how America votes comes just as that question has been thrust into the forefront of American politics. As health officials warn about the risk of spreading the coronavirus at polling places, some in the Republican Party have tried to limit the expansion of mail voting, with Trump and others openly fretting that it may enable too many people to cast their ballots for the GOP to win in November.

All states conduct elections differently, and only five states automatically mail ballots to every voter. But in response to the virus, some states — including Ohio on Tuesday — have shifted their primaries to virtually all-mail elections. On Monday, New York Democrats canceled their presidential primary, which had already been delayed until June 23.

The Republican National Committee has been fighting some of those moves. Republicans successfully petitioned a New Mexico court to block the state from holding its June primary exclusively by mail, forcing the state to open some polling places and only send applications for absentee ballots to voters.

The Republican Attorney General in Texas argued unsuccessfully in a legal case that the coronavirus should not be an automatically accepted excuse for people seeking absentee ballots in that state.

Most prominently, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature rebuffed a last-minute request to hold that state’s April 7 primary and state court election by mail. Democrats won a contested Supreme Court race, but not before shuttered polling locations left voters in long lines at polling places in Green Bay and Milwaukee, where only five of 183 stations were open.

But the debates over the primaries may only be a preview of the partisan battles ahead if the virus is still forcing stay-at-home orders and social distancing in November.

The poll finds that 39% of Americans favor conducting all-mail elections, up from 19% in 2018. Another 40% are opposed. But even more, 48%, favor a move to voting only by mail if the coronavirus outbreak is ongoing in November.

The poll also shows 60% of Americans support allowing people to vote via absentee ballot without requiring them to give a reason if the outbreak is still happening. That includes 73% percent of Democrats and 46% of Republicans. Some 40% of Republicans are opposed.

The partisan differences could have a strong impact across the presidential battleground states. Five of the top seven swing states — Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have divided government, and skirmishes over voting have already broken out in several. In some, there are signs that Democratic areas are moving faster than GOP ones to embrace mail voting.

In Wisconsin, Democrats have already started to bolster their mail voting operations for November. Reliably Democratic Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, will send every one of its 300,000 voters a request for an absentee ballot. Republicans, who have resisted a similar step statewide, acknowledge that Milwaukee’s move would put them at a disadvantage. “It makes winning Wisconsin harder,” said Andrew Hitt, chair of the state Republican Party, calling for intervention to “level the playing field.”

In Pennsylvania, Democratically-led areas are eager to expand absentee voting, but Republicans seem less so. The second-most populous county in the state, the Democratic bastion of Allegheny, which includes Pittsburgh, is sending absentee ballot requests to all its voters in its June primary.

The poll found roughly two-thirds of Republicans worried that voter fraud would be a major problem with all-mail voting. Two months ago, about as many described voter fraud as a major problem in U.S. elections in general. Widespread voter fraud in mail-in voting is uncommon.

Brynn Alexander, 36, who just moved with her husband to military housing in Alabama, is one of those who worries about security.

“How do you even identify that the mail got to the right person?” Alexander asked. She added that she favored exceptions for some, like her 70-year-old mother, but preferred votes at the polls.

“It’s going to be better to make everybody feel confident with the results,” she said of in-person voting in the presidential election. “You don’t want one party or the other saying the other side cheated.”

Meanwhile, only 29% of Democrats were worried about fraud being a major problem in an all-mail election, though another 41% described it as a minor problem. Rick Reinesch, a 59-year-old IT technician in Austin, Texas, said Republicans needlessly pump up worries about voter fraud. “It’s trying to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer,” he said.

Paul Miller, 81, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is wary of voting by mail. He’s accustomed to going to the polls on Election Day. “I’m just not sold on mail-in voting,” the Republican and retired factory worker said.

But Miller may bow to the reality that he shouldn’t be face-to-face with poll workers anytime soon and cast his vote by absentee.

“I’m not dead set against mail,” Miller said. “I could be persuaded.”

___

Riccardi reported from Denver.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,057 adults was conducted April 16-20 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 percentage points.

___

Online:

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