By Colleen Long and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

June 23, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans overwhelmingly want clear standards on when police officers may use force and consequences for officers who do so excessively, according to a new poll that finds nearly all Americans favor at least some level of change to the nation’s criminal justice system.

The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds there is strong support for penalizing officers who engage in racially biased policing. Americans are more likely now than five years ago to say that police violence against the public is a very serious problem and that officers who cause injury or death on the job are treated too leniently.

“For me, as a Black person, I’m like, this has been happening,” said Kevin Richardson, 38, of Charlotte, North Carolina. “We should’ve been knowing it, we should’ve been seeing this and so now what’s happened is, I’ll be honest, white people are seeing it and saying, ‘This is wrong.’”

The survey of American adults took place after weeks of mass demonstrations against police violence and calls from some politicians and activists to “defund” departments in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in custody after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes.

Americans are largely united behind the idea that action is required: 29% think the criminal justice system needs “a complete overhaul,” 40% say it needs “major changes” and 25% say it needs “minor changes.” Just 5% believe no changes are necessary.

Megan Pecknold, 33, of Spokane, Washington, said the protests have forced her to think about these issues in a way she had the luxury, as a white person, of previously ignoring.

“I had never really given much thought to police use of force. I’m white. I’ve never had a bad encounter with a police officer,” she said. “The last few months have brought to light more of this for me, and now I am educating myself.”

Nearly 6 in 10 Black Americans think the criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul, compared with about a quarter of white Americans who said the same. About 4 in 10 white Americans say major changes are needed; 3 in 10 prefer minor changes.

While Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think the system needs an overhaul, 44% to 12%, Americans across party lines are nearly unanimous in thinking at least some change is necessary. Another 44% of Democrats think major changes are necessary. Among Republicans, 34% call for major changes and 47% for minor changes.

The poll finds overwhelming support for changes in how police departments operate: requiring officers to wear body cameras, establishing clear standards for use of force, prosecuting officers who use excessive force and requiring officers to report misconduct by their peers.

Despite their popularity, body cameras have not always proved to be the fix reformers hoped. But Kimberly Jones, 52, of New York City, said they are at the top of her list.

“You need more seeing what’s going on as they’re pulling up on people,” she said. “You need to know from the start so you can stop something bad from happening.”

Majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike strongly support establishing clear standards for use of force, requiring officers to wear video cameras and requiring officers to report misconduct by their peers. There also is bipartisan support for prosecuting officers who use excessive force and penalizing officers for racially biased policing, though more Democrats than Republicans intensely favor these policies.

Brian Bernard, 54, a Republican and retired IT worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said the bystander video of Floyd’s death was like watching a “9-minute murder.” But he said the problem is one of a bad cop, not a bad system. Banning chokeholds or requiring retraining won’t make a bad officer better, he said.

“Democrats and liberals seem to have a problem of only fixing symptoms,” he said. “They can never see the actual problem, and the problem is just a bad cop.”

While chants of “defund the police” have become a rallying cry at some protests, the survey found that only 25% of Americans favor reducing law enforcement funding. Democrats are somewhat more likely to support than oppose doing so, 41% to 33%, while Republicans are overwhelming opposed.

Bob Haines, 75, a pilot from Oklahoma City who supports President Donald Trump, said he thinks police officers do an excellent job.

“Just like in my profession, most of us do a good job, but there are a few bad pilots,” Haines said. “A couple of incidents have happened, and all of a sudden the sky’s falling, you know?”

Democrats and Republicans divide on whether the justice system should reduce the focus on policing and prosecuting low-level offenses, with 63% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans in favor. Overall, Americans are more likely to be in favor than opposed, 46% to 25%.

To prevent police violence, most Americans also favor requiring all officers to participate in more extensive racial bias training. Majorities of Americans think that police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person and that Black Americans are generally treated less fairly by police.

Pecknold, who favors moderate changes in the criminal justice system, said those changes should be targeted at chipping away at systemic racist behavior.

“I don’t think Americans really understand how police are taught these tactics to begin with,” she said. “Understanding the details more will help us make smarter changes.”

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AP writer Sean Murphy contributed to this report from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,301 adults was conducted June 11-15 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 3.7 percentage points.

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Online:

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

By Julie Pace and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

August 24, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is promising to outline an optimistic vision for America at this week’s Republican convention. But he’ll be speaking to a public deeply pessimistic about the direction of the country and overwhelmingly dissatisfied with his and the federal government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Most Americans think there isn’t enough being done to help individual Americans, small businesses or public schools as the pandemic stretches on, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Overall, just 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s leadership on the pandemic, a significant drop from 44% approval in March, when the virus began sweeping through the United States.

The public’s negative assessment of how Trump is handling the crisis puts him on the defensive as his November face-off against Democrat Joe Biden nears. One of Trump’s challenges as his convention opens on Monday night is to convince Americans that anything about his response to the pandemic will change or improve if voters give him four more years in office.

Yet Trump has shown little willingness to acknowledge that a course correction of any kind is needed. He’s repeatedly cast the virus as all but defeated, even when cases were sharply increasing, including in states he needs to win in November. He’s also insisted the U.S. has vastly outperformed other countries in tackling the pandemic, despite the fact the U.S. has the most confirmed cases (more than 5.7 million) and most confirmed deaths (more than 176,000) of any country in the world.

“To be persuasive, there needs to be a strategy and not just rhetoric,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said of Trump’s challenge this week.

The president heads into his four-night nominating convention with an overall approval rating of 35%. That’s down from 43% in March but still within range of where Trump has been for much of his presidency. Where he falls within that range as Election Day nears could make a difference to his reelection prospects.

His support continues to be driven overwhelmingly by Republicans, with 79% approving of his job performance compared with just 5% of Democrats.

Trump must also contend with Americans’ persistently negative view of the country’s direction as he asks voters to stay the course instead of handing the reins over to Biden. The AP-NORC poll finds that just 23% think the country is heading in the right direction, while 75% think it’s on the wrong path.

Republican strategist Gail Gitcho said the national mood makes it imperative for the president to strike an optimistic tone during his convention.

“The most important time for optimism is when pessimism is rampant,” said Gitcho, who advised Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “That’s when it is most needed and works best.”

The president’s highest marks continue to come on the economy: 47% of Americans approve of his stewardship of the economy, though that, too, is down from 56% approval in March. Trump is expected to lean hard into his economic credentials during the convention, arguing that when the pandemic subsides, he can again lead the country into a period of sustained growth and job creation.

Trump’s advisers are also seizing on remarks Biden made last week in which he said he would shut the country down to stop further spread of the virus if that’s what public health experts recommend. They believe Americans are weary of pandemic restrictions and focused instead on ways to safely keep the economy up and running.

Biden, in an interview with ABC News, said he would “be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus.”

As the country grapples with how to keep businesses afloat and open schools for in-person learning, Americans see little help flowing to those who need it most. Two-thirds of Americans say the government is doing too little to help the individuals and small businesses. A similar share thinks the government needs to do more to help public schools with their finances.

The poll was conducted after Congress left for its August recess without passing a new round of pandemic assistance. House Democrats approved a $3 trillion relief package that included money for schools, state and local governments and other entities, but Republicans balked at the price tag and some of the provisions. It’s unclear whether lawmakers can break the logjam when they return to the Capitol in September.

The lack of action on Capitol Hill appears to have contributed to Congress’ sinking approval rating. Just 13% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing during the pandemic, down from 31% in March. The federal government as a whole has also taken a hit with the public, with approval down from 38% in March to 23% now.

Americans remain more positive in their views of how state governments are handling the pandemic, with 44% approving of their state’s performance. Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to approve of state government, 51% to 41%.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,075 adults was conducted Aug. 17-19 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 Josh Boak and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

September 22, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans view the nation’s economic situation as bleak, but a rising percentage also see signs of stability six weeks before Election Day — if not reasons for optimism.

According to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 60% of Americans describe the national economy as poor and 40% deem it good. That’s a rebound in confidence from low points in April and May, when just 29% called the economy good as the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the country.

About 4 in 10 Americans — 43% — say they expect the economy to improve in the next year, about the same as in July. But just 28% said they expect things to get even worse, a slight improvement from the 35% who said so in July and a significant improvement from May, when 40% expected things to continue getting worse. This month, 27% expect no change in economic conditions in the next year.

That relative hopefulness may say more about the nation’s politics than the underlying health of the world’s largest economy.

President Donald Trump is seeking reelection against Democrat Joe Biden with stock market gains as a rallying cry. The unemployment rate has improved, but remains high at 8.4%, and lawmakers have failed to agree on additional aid for Americans suffering financially due to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the continued toll from the virus — including the loss of schooling and revenue shortfalls for state and local governments — threatens the prospect for a wider recovery.

The poll found that 67% of Republicans call the economy good, compared with 16% of Democrats. Republicans are significantly more likely to expect the economy to get better than worse in the next year, 64% to 14%. Among Democrats, 39% expect things to get worse and 28% expect them to get better, while 32% expect no change.

“It’s kind of just in a neutral gear,” said Gary Cameron, 65, a retiree and Trump supporter from Midwest City, Oklahoma. “I do expect after the pandemic is over, it will probably go back to where it was, maybe better.”

But Cameron believes that the world’s largest economy would be hurt by a Biden presidency, saying he does not believe the country suffers from systemic racism and that addressing the demands of civil rights protesters would come at the expense of institutions that drive growth.

“The people the Democratic Party have gotten into bed with do not love America,” Cameron said. “I think it would do damage to the country.”

The poll finds that half of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy, which remains his strongest issue. By comparison, 43% approve of how he’s handling his job overall. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans and 15% of Democrats approve of Trump’s handling of the economy.

About two-thirds of Americans — 65% — say their own personal finances are good. That number has remained largely steady since before the pandemic began. Seventy-eight percent of Republicans and 58% of Democrats say their personal finances are good. Americans are also more likely to expect their personal finances to get better than worse, 38% to 13%, with 48% expecting no change.

Bob Blanchard, 73, of Augusta, Georgia, lives in a community hurt by the coronavirus and the loss of business locally from a spectator-free Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. A consulting engineer, Blanchard said local businesses are suffering and he can no longer make money by renting out his house to the crowds who came for the fabled golf tournament.

“My wife and I don’t go out to eat,” Blanchard said. “We avoid retail shopping like the plague. No pun intended.”

Blanchard, who intends to vote for Biden, says the blame for this rests with Trump.

“He just was completely irresponsible and incompetent,” he said. “He knew it was bad, but he didn’t do anything.”

The poll shows 22% of Americans who say they or someone in their household lost a job as a result of the pandemic say the job has returned. Thirty-five percent expect the job to come back, but 44% expect it won’t.

Overall, 27% of Americans say their household lost a job, 36% that someone was scheduled for fewer hours, 26% took unpaid time off and 27% had wages or salaries reduced. All told, 53% experienced at least one form of household income loss during the pandemic. Income losses have been especially concentrated among Black and Hispanic Americans and those without college degrees.

Ryan Wilson, 37, said that half of the workers at the seafood warehouse where he’s a supervisor were furloughed when the pandemic started — and not all have returned to their jobs. A resident of Altamonte Springs, Florida, he said his concern is that the economic troubles are worsening drug addiction and domestic violence.

“People are really suffering,” he said. “They’re facing levels of depression, anxiety and distress — and not just financially. They turn to something to escape the daily pressures of life and that’s ravaging across American right now.”

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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.

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Online:

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

By Josh Boak and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

June 22, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ outlook on the national economy has improved somewhat from its lowest points during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, but a new poll suggests Democrats and Republicans are living in alternate economic realities amid the sharpest recession in the nation’s history.

Eighty-five percent of Democrats call economic conditions “poor,” while 65% of Republicans describe them as “good” in a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

This divide reflects the deep polarization ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as well as a series of indicators that point toward a weakened but recovering U.S. economy.

“The economy is in terrible shape and improving rapidly,” said Harvard University professor Jason Furman, formerly the top economist in the Obama White House. “Depending on which of the two halves you’re looking at, you’re going to have a very different interpretation of where we are.”

Americans can see reasons for hope as well as doubt. They face a host of uncertainties about the path of COVID-19, the fate of small businesses with fewer customers and the status of additional government aid.

Overall, 63% of the country says the economy is in poor shape, down somewhat from the 70% who felt that way in May. The change was driven by increasingly optimistic Republicans, only 43% of whom described the economy as good a month ago. Two-thirds of Republicans, but just 29% of Democrats, expect improvement over the next year.

Thelma Ross, 78, of Granby, Missouri, believes the economy will recover if President Donald Trump can defeat Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the former vice president.

“I think it’s going to come back, stronger than ever, if we get the right president in,” Ross said. “President Trump is a businessman.”

Yet she is concerned by the protests after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, an African American, and the calls to remove statues that celebrate the Confederacy and Christopher Columbus. Ross views division as harmful for any economic recovery.

Ross said of Trump: “I pray for divine revelation and divine guidance for that man because he needs that right now.”

The survey finds that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely than white Americans to say someone in their household has lost a job or other income. That inequality has added to the broader reckoning with structural racism amid nationwide protests over police brutality following Floyd’s death.

Overall, 66% of Hispanic Americans and 53% of Black Americans say they’ve experienced some form of household income loss, including layoffs, unpaid time off and cuts in hours or pay. Forty-two percent of white Americans say the same. Thirty-four percent of Hispanics, 29% of African Americans and 20% of white Americans said someone in their household has been laid off.

The poll finds signs that some of those layoffs are becoming permanent. Among all those who experienced a layoff in their household, 55% say the job definitely or probably will return — and 8% say it already has. Still, 36% said the job will most likely not come back, which is significantly higher than the 20% who said that in April.

The economy cratered in March and April as people sheltered in place in hopes of stopping the pandemic, and the unemployment rate spiked to at least 14.7%. Responses to government surveys suggested the true jobless rate may have been even higher. But it showed signs of reviving in May. Retail sales surged 17.7%, and 2.5 million jobs were added. The unemployment rate improved to 13.3%, a number that is still the second highest reading in records going back to 1948.

Leah Avery, 54, lost her job driving a school bus in suburban Dallas. She said she checks her email daily to find out how schools will reopen. She applied for unemployment benefits a month ago, but the request has been under review.

“It’s a struggle day by day for us to pay our bills, and I know others are going through the same thing,” she said.

The job loss has only added to her stress. Her aunt died from COVID-19, and she needs to take care of her elderly mother and her husband, who has dialysis appointments three days a week. It’s a full-time job with no pay, she said.

“I just have these moments where it makes me cry,” she said. “You don’t know this day from the next day what is going to happen.”

The nearly $3 trillion in approved federal aid has shielded many people from the pain of the downturn. About two-thirds of Americans still call their personal financial situations good.

A bipartisan group of economists proposed an additional $1 trillion to $2 trillion of aid to sustain any recovery, including targeted funds for state and local governments, subsidized loans for small businesses, more generous unemployment benefits and aid for low-wage workers.

“It should be thought of as an investment in the economy,” said Melissa Kearney, a University of Maryland economics professor who helped lead the effort. The proposals are based on ideas shown to boost growth and provide traction for a recovery that is still in its early and fragile stages.

Broxton Sanders, 20, has been selling mattresses while on break from studies at the University of South Alabama. He’s a rising junior majoring in political science, and he would like to one day oversee a hospital for military veterans. He noticed that mattress sales picked up during Memorial Day weekend, but there are days now with few, if any, shoppers.

“The economy definitely could be better,” Sanders said. “I’ll be honest, I think we’ve seen the worst of it. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t fall off kilter at any second.”

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,310 adults was conducted June 11-15 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 3.7 percentage points.

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Online:

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

By Elana Schor and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

August 5, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The principle of religious freedom is important to most Americans. But as President Donald Trump touts his support for it during his reelection bid, there are notable fault lines among people of different faiths and political ideologies over what it truly means.

About 8 in 10 Americans said religious freedom issues are at least somewhat important to them, with 55% saying they are very important, according to a newly released poll conducted by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

While 35% of U.S. adults overall said they believe their own religious freedom is threatened at least somewhat, conservatives were more likely than liberals to say so. Across the largest U.S. religious denominations, evangelical Protestants were especially likely to perceive risks to their freedom to worship.

A divide over religious freedom for Muslims was particularly apparent in the poll. About half of Americans said U.S. Muslims’ freedom to worship is threatened at least somewhat, including 7 in 10 atheists and agnostics, about 6 in 10 Catholics, and about half of white mainline and nonwhite Protestants. Only about 3 in 10 white evangelicals, however, said Muslim Americans’ religious freedom is at least somewhat threatened.

The poll’s findings suggest that, as Trump leans into religious freedom as a touchstone of his outreach to devout voters, conservatives and evangelicals who make up the core of his base hold distinctly different perspectives on the topic than other Americans. Whether those divergent views can be joined and harnessed to make progress on the issue for a wide variety of faiths remains an open question.

“No one’s religious freedom is an island, and if the government is empowered to take religious freedom away from Muslims or other religious minorities, the government is going to be empowered to take away religious freedom from other religious groups,” said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at the nonpartisan Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Becket has racked up legal victories for Christian clients, including last month’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld the ability of religious schools and other institutions to make certain employment decisions without facing discrimination claims.

But the nonprofit firm represents members of all faiths, and Goodrich said “it’s vitally important, for the health of religious freedom over the long term, that Americans care for religious freedom for those with whom they deeply disagree.”

In the poll, 77% of liberals said Muslims’ freedoms were threatened at least somewhat, compared with 32% of conservatives. Liberals also were roughly three times more likely than conservatives to perceive threats to atheists and Buddhists, and somewhat more likely to perceive threats to Jews, 56% to 41%.

By contrast, by roughly two to one, more conservatives than liberals said evangelical Protestants, Catholics and other Christians face threats to their religious freedom.

Andrew Lewis, an associate political science professor at the University of Cincinnati who focuses on religion, said a “polarization of religious freedom” has developed over the last two decades, with potentially negative consequences.

“Religious freedom has always been a contested question in America,” Lewis said, “but the fact that it’s entered into our politically partisan landscape is bad for thinking about how we protect the rights of people.”

The poll was conducted in February, before the coronavirus wreaked havoc in the country, but has not been made public until now. And some of its findings have resonated more sharply since the pandemic began.

For example, 46% of evangelicals said their religious freedom was under threat, compared with 27% of mainline Protestants, 36% of Catholics and 40% of Americans affiliated with other religions.

Another UChicago Divinity School/AP-NORC poll conducted in the early weeks of the pandemic found white evangelicals were particularly likely to say in-person worship should be allowed in some form, and 46% said that barring those services would violate religious freedom.

David Nirenberg, dean of The University of Chicago Divinity School, pointed to “communications bubbles in certain faith communities” that often reinforce to believers the assertion that their religious liberty is imperiled.

“We’re seeing some of that now mobilized again in the public health response” to the virus, Nirenberg added, including restrictions on in-person worship and other behavior that are “represented in some of those same communities as an attack on their religious liberties.”

Trump’s reelection campaign has appealed to evangelicals in part by seeking to portray Democrats as opponents of religious freedom, with surrogates often citing state and local restrictions on in-person worship during the pandemic.

Religious freedom lawyer Asma Uddin connected the poll’s finding that evangelicals are less likely than other groups to believe Muslims’ freedom to worship is threatened to their broader perspective on religious freedom.

Evangelicals can view religious freedom “essentially as a shield to protect the ‘in’ group,” added Uddin, a fellow at the Aspen Institute think tank. As a result, it “becomes something you can’t defend for the ‘out’ group.”

However, the poll’s findings of a gulf in perceptions about religious freedom wasn’t limited to evangelicals. About half of atheists and agnostics said evangelical Protestants’ claims to religious freedom threaten others’ rights at least somewhat, and about 4 in 10 said the same about other Christians.

By comparison, 16% of Protestants perceived evangelicals and other Christians as threatening the rights of others with their claims.

Roughly comparable shares across religious affiliations — about 4 in 10 — said Jews’ freedom of religion is being threatened at least somewhat. Similarly, roughly comparable shares across religious affiliations — all under 2 in 10 — said Jews’ claims were threatening to others’ rights.

Religious groups that make up a small share of the U.S. population could not be analyzed separately in the poll because of sample size.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,015 adults was conducted Feb. 13-16 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/.

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Schor reported from New York.

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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.