By Julie Pace, Hannah Fingerhut and Will Weissert | The Associated Press

April 1, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans give high marks to state and local governments for their handling of the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic that has swiftly remade everyday life. But less than half approve of the job done thus far by President Donald Trump and the federal government, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Even so, and while he remains deeply polarizing, the poll finds Trump’s approval ratings are among the highest of his presidency. Forty-four percent of Americans support Trump’s oversight of the pandemic, in line with his overall 43% approval rating. That’s at the high end for the Republican president during his more than three years in office.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed more than 4,000 Americans and shut down much of the U.S. economy, is the most urgent and unpredictable crisis of Trump’s presidency. The coming weeks will likely shape how Americans view the wisdom of giving him a second term in the November election, where he is likely to face off against former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump initially downplayed the virus, comparing it to the flu. He also suggested restrictions on work and travel could be lifted by mid-April, arguing that the response to the virus shouldn’t be worse than the health crisis itself.

But the president has shifted his stance again in recent days, and on Tuesday, the White House estimated up to 240,000 Americans could die from coronavirus even if strict social distancing measures are maintained. If those steps aren’t taken, the number of deaths seems certain to increase.

“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump said.

Trump’s approval ratings are propped up by strong support from Republicans: 82% back his handling of the pandemic. Democrats remain overwhelmingly opposed to the president, with just 14% of Democrats supportive of his actions in recent weeks.

The president, whose lengthy press conferences from the White House have been broadcast daily throughout the crisis, rates higher than both the federal government as a whole and the U.S. Congress, which just approved $2.2 trillion in emergency funding for major industries, small businesses and individuals. Lawmakers are already discussing additional ways to stabilize the economy as the pandemic appears likely to stretch deep into at least the spring or summer.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans approve of the federal government’s handling of the outbreak, while 41% disapprove. And just 31% approve of how leaders in Congress are handling the crisis, less than the 41% who disapprove. Fewer than half of Democrats or Republicans approve of how Congress is handling the situation.

Americans have a far more favorable opinion about the response efforts by their state and local governments — positive feelings shared across the political spectrum. More than half of Americans, including 56% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, say their states are managing the outbreak well.

Judy Kunzman, 73, a retired nurse in Lower Swatara Township, Pennsylvania, is among those who says her state government’s response is superior to that of the president and federal government.

“I keep thinking of Harry Truman and how he always said, ‘The buck stops here.’ Our president says, ‘I’m not taking responsibility for that,’” Kunzman said. She said that while Trump appears to be taking the matter more seriously in recent days, his response still leaves a lot to be desired.

“When you have to be pushed to the edge before you do the almost correct thing, that’s not an improvement,” Kunzman said.

State and local governments have much of the power to shape the response in their locales, determining what businesses remain open, how long schools will be shuttered and what penalties there are, if any, for those who violate stay-at-home or similar orders. That’s led to a patchwork of restrictions, with major cities including New York, Chicago and San Francisco virtually shuttered. More than 30 states issued stay-at-home orders more than a week ago, while Florida’s governor resisted doing so until this week, even as coronavirus cases rose in the state.

Trump, too, initially resisted recommendations from public health officials to extend social distancing measures through at least April. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he decided to abandon his county-by-county approach for a statewide order after consulting with Trump.

The poll shows that a large majority of Americans, 78%, back requiring Americans to stay in their homes except for essential errands. Roughly the same amount also favor restricting travel within the U.S. and requiring bars and restaurants to close.

Those numbers reflect a sharp increase in public concern over the virus within the past six weeks. Half of Americans now say they are extremely or very worried about either themselves or a family member being infected by the virus. That compares with 31% who said the same just two weeks ago and 22% who said so six weeks ago, when more Americans were concerned about the flu.

Susan Oldfield, a 68-year-old retiree in rural Jesseville, Arkansas, said she trusts the guidance from the federal government and wishes more people did.

“I see people using poor judgement and saying, ‘Oh, this is just a hoax,’ or, ‘This is just something to smash our rights or take away our constitutional rights,’” Oldfield said. “It doesn’t seem like, to me, it’s like you have to do this for no reason. You have to do this for a real reason.”

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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.

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

By Emily Swanson and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar | The Associated Press

June 8, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The coronavirus pushed hospitals to the edge, and millions of workers lost job-based coverage in the economic shutdown to slow the spread, but a new poll suggests Americans have remarkably little interest in big changes to health care as a result of the pandemic.

People are still more likely to prefer the private sector than the government on driving innovation in health care, improving quality and, by a narrower margin, providing coverage, according to the survey by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Those views are basically unchanged since February, when an earlier edition of the AP-NORC poll asked the same questions at a time that the coronavirus was still largely seen as a problem in other countries, not the United States.

“It does strike me as odd,” said Gaye Cocoman, a retired data processing administrator from small-town Macedonia, Ohio, who has Medicare. “I’m covered, but I look at the millions of people who aren’t and wonder what in the world they’re going to do if they get sick. There seems to be no appetite for change.”

The poll found that people are more likely to trust private entities over government at driving innovation in health care (70% to 28%), improving quality (62% to 36%) and providing insurance coverage (53% to 44%). Americans had more confidence in government’s ability to reduce costs, preferring it over the private sector 54% to 44%. All of those preferences are unchanged since before COVID-19 arrived.

Not that long ago Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan was at the center of the Democratic presidential debate. But even with an estimated 27 million people losing employer coverage in the economic shutdown, there’s been no groundswell of support for the Sanders plan, which calls for replacing the nation’s hybrid system of private and government coverage with a single government plan for all.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked last month whether waves of layoffs were prompting her Democratic caucus members to reconsider the employer-based system that covers most working families, responded: “That’s not our conversation.”

Pelosi said Democrats are backing measures to tide over workers who have lost coverage — such as expansions of the Affordable Care Act — but “rather than saying let’s take that (employer coverage) away from them, we should say let’s get them their jobs back.”

It could simply be a reflection of human nature to shelve ambitious schemes during a crisis, said health economist Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. There’s only so much available bandwidth.

“I wonder if the short-term crisis dampens people’s appetite for health system reform,” Baicker said. “The idea of upending the health system at this moment … it may be that people think, ‘No — let’s get a vaccine.’ ”

After the spectacle of coronavirus-related shortages of everything from cotton swabs, to protective gear for nurses and doctors, to breathing machines for desperately ill patients, the poll did find 56% saying the U.S. is spending too little on improving and protecting the nation’s health.

That is a significantly bigger share than the 42% who think the government is spending too little in general. Still, views on the need for more health care spending were unchanged since before the pandemic.

Christina Rush, a middle school counselor from Raleigh, North Carolina, is among those who think the U.S. should spend more on health care and cites the virus as a reason.

“Looking at COVID, I didn’t realize the huge shortages of material that would be needed,” Rush said. “I would have thought we had what we needed in terms of the medical system, but it seems we were so far behind some of these other countries, like South Korea. We could be spending more.”

With more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 and about 40 million people unemployed, the poll found what may reflect hints of introspection among those who still have jobs and coverage. In May, Americans were less focused on their own complaints.

While about 3 in 5 said they were very or extremely concerned about Americans in general having access to high quality care, people were less likely than in February to say they were greatly concerned about having access to quality care for themselves (46% to 58%) and about their own health care spending (35% to 44%).

Other research is reinforcing that pattern, said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of the AP-NORC center. “Our data are showing that in the midst of a public health and economic crisis, people’s assessments of their own situations are holding steady, or even better than they were before the COVID outbreak started to unfurl,” she said.

“It feels a little counter-intuitive,” added Benz.

Utility worker Nick Zumbusch said he’s noticed that shift, too, since the pandemic. He’s seeing it when it comes to workplace gripes.Full Coverage: Health

“In February, people had all sorts of complaints about their jobs — their daily tasks, their hourly pay,” said Zumbusch, a father of three from Waconia, Minnesota. “Come May, there wasn’t a whole lot of complaining. It was, ‘I’m happy to be here, and I’m happy to have a job.’”

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,001 adults was conducted May 14-18 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 4.4 percentage points.

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

By Thomas Beaumont and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

April 22, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans remain overwhelmingly in favor of stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a new survey finds, even as small pockets of attention-grabbing protests demanding the lifting of such restrictions emerge nationwide.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds that a majority of Americans say it won’t be safe to lift social distancing guidelines anytime soon, running counter to the choice of a handful of governors who have announced plans to ease within days the public health efforts that have upended daily life and roiled the global economy.

More than a month after schoolyards fell silent, restaurant tables and bar stools emptied, and waves from a safe distance replaced hugs and handshakes, the country largely believes restrictions on social interaction to curb the spread of the virus are appropriate.

Only 12% of Americans say the measures where they live go too far. About twice as many people, 26%, believe the limits don’t go far enough. The majority of Americans — 61% — feel the steps taken by government officials to prevent infections of COVID-19 in their area are about right.

About 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes and limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer — numbers that have largely held steady over the past few weeks.

“We haven’t begun to flatten the curve yet. We’re still ramping up in the number of cases and the number of deaths,” said Laura McCullough, 47, a college physics professor from Menomonie, Wisconsin. “We’re still learning about what it can do, and if we’re still learning about what it can do, this isn’t going to be the time to let people go out and get back to their life.”

While the poll reveals that the feelings behind the protests that materialized in the past week or so in battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are held by only a small fraction of Americans, it does find signs that Republicans are, like President Donald Trump, becoming more bullish on reopening aspects of public life.

Just 36% of Republicans now say they strongly favor requiring Americans to stay home during the outbreak, compared with 51% who said so in late March. While majorities of Democrats and Republicans think current restrictions where they live are about right, Republicans are roughly four times as likely as Democrats to think restrictions in place go too far — 22% to 5%.

More Democrats than Republicans, meanwhile, think restrictions don’t go far enough, 33% to 19%.

“They’ll be lifted, but there are still going to be sick people running around,” said 66-year-old Lynn Sanchez, a Democrat and retired convenience store manager from Jacksonville, Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has reopened state parks and plans to announce further relaxations next week. “And we’re going to have another pandemic.”

More than 45,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, while 22 million have applied for unemployment benefits since March. It’s that economic cost that has led some governors to follow Trump’s lead and start talking about allowing some shuttered businesses to reopen, including in Georgia, where many businesses — including gyms, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors — can do so starting Friday. Restaurants there can resume dine-in service next week.

Yet the survey finds that few Americans — 16% — think it’s very or extremely likely that their areas will be safe enough in a few weeks for the restrictions to be lifted. While 27% think it’s somewhat likely, a majority of Americans — 56% — say conditions are unlikely to be safe in a few weeks to start lifting the current restrictions.

“If we try too hard to restart the economy prematurely, there will be waves of reinfection,” said 70-year-old retired medical equipment salesman Goble Floyd, of Bonita Springs, Florida. “I don’t think the economy or life will get back to normal until there’s a vaccine. It just seems this is so seriously contagious.”

The emerging partisan differences are apparent. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is a Republican and unwavering Trump supporter. GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin filed suit Tuesday against the state’s Democratic governor after he ordered most nonessential businesses to remain closed until May 26.

The poll finds 59% of Republicans say it’s at least somewhat likely that their areas will be safe enough for reopening in just a few weeks, compared with 71% of Democrats who say it is unlikely. Still, even among Republicans, just 27% say that’s very likely.

“I haven’t met one person at the protests that disagrees with the fact that we need to self-quarantine until April 30,” said Matt Seely, a spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which sponsored an automobile-based protest at the state’s capitol in Lansing last week. “Nobody wants to do the wrong thing. But the solution is not to stay in your home until the last case of COVID is gone.”

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

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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 4.0 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 Kat Stafford and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

May 6, 2020

DETROIT (AP) — People of color have not only been hit harder by the deadly coronavirus than have Americans overall, but they’re also bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s financial impact, according to a recent survey from the The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The financial picture is especially grim for Hispanic Americans, while some African Americans face the dual burden of being disproportionately affected by the virus itself while also struggling to pay bills due to the economic fallout.

The poll found that 61% of Hispanic Americans say they’ve experienced some kind of household income loss as a result of the outbreak, including job losses, unpaid leave, pay cuts and fewer scheduled hours. That’s compared with 46% of Americans overall. Thirty-seven percent of Latinos and 27% of black Americans say they’ve been unable to pay at least one type of bill as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Only 17% of white Americans say the same.

“If our policies do not adequately address these shortfalls and the racial disparities in income, wealth, employment and wages, then we’re going to see the same pattern that we have seen historically,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy. “It’s going to take much longer for these families to recover — if they ever recover economically.”

The survey, conducted in mid-April, found that 21% of Hispanics have been unable to make a rent or mortgage payment as a result of the outbreak, while 23% have been unable to pay a credit card bill. That compares with 8% of white Americans in both cases. Black Americans are also slightly more likely than white Americans to have been unable to pay a credit card bill, at 15%.

New Mexico resident Denise Abraham, a retired teacher and librarian, said her 34-year-old son has experienced a loss of income after he quit his restaurant job because he didn’t want to potentially expose his family to the virus.

“As a community, I don’t see a lot of anger, just a lot of sadness and worry about what’s to come,” Abraham, a Hispanic woman, said, adding that she’s worried about the Navajo Nation and people who are in the country illegally becoming infected. “But what this shows now is who we really need and who’s really doing the labor to carry our economy. It’s always been on the shoulders of poor people.”

While income losses have hit Americans across the board, layoffs have been especially concentrated among lower income and less educated people. Twenty-eight percent of Americans without college degrees say they’ve had a layoff in their household, compared with 19% of those with degrees.

Milwaukee resident Tamela Andrews was excited to start her new job a few months ago as an inventory specialist, serving some of the big box stores in her community. She and several others at her company were furloughed after the pandemic began. Andrews, a 51-year-old black woman, was able to land a different job, but she’s concerned for the future.

“I hope when things do go back to normal maybe the stores will have us back for our other jobs,” Andrews said. “It’s up in the air though and it’s really stressful to experience this.”

Along with the financial impact, people of color are also more likely to know someone close to them who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The poll found that 12% of Americans say they or a close friend or relative has been diagnosed. Among black Americans, 21% say they or someone close to them has been diagnosed.

A separate Associated Press analysis of available state and local data shows that nearly one-third of those who have died of COVID-19 are African American, with black people representing about 14% of the population in the areas covered in the analysis.

San Diego resident Cristina Hall, who identifies as Hispanic, said communities of color tend to have a cultural history of multiple generations of families living together. She believes those strong familial ties have put some at risk, as has work in jobs, such as those in the service industry, that require them to interface with the public.

“It’s frustrating,” Hall, 41, said. “All of these protests all over the United States (to reopen state economies), who do you see? You don’t see people of color at those protests. It’s a sense of entitlement that they want this economy to open, not so they can necessarily go back to work but so that people of color can go back to work and take care of them.”

While the protests have garnered attention, the AP-NORC poll found that most Americans overwhelmingly support restrictions aimed at containing the virus and are taking personal actions to protect themselves from the coronavirus. Ninety-five percent say they’re both washing hands more frequently and staying away from large groups. African Americans are also more likely than either white or Hispanic Americans to say they’re wearing masks outside the home, 83% to 64% and 67%, respectively.

“I take it very seriously, because it’s an invisible killer,” said Michael French, a 62-year-old black man, of St. Paul, Minnesota, who says he wears a mask and gloves everywhere he goes. “But some people won’t until it affects them personally and then they’ll wake up to the deadliness of this virus.”

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Kat Stafford is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow Stafford on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kat__stafford. Swanson reported from Washington.

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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 4.0 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 Thomas Beaumont and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

May 20, 2020

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Strong concern about a second wave of coronavirus infections is reinforcing widespread opposition among Americans to reopening public places, a new poll finds, even as many state leaders step up efforts to return to life before the pandemic.

Yet support for public health restrictions imposed to control the virus’s spread is no longer overwhelming. It has been eroded over the past month by a widening partisan divide, with Democrats more cautious and Republicans less anxious as President Donald Trump urges states to “open up our country,” according to the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll finds that 83% of Americans are at least somewhat concerned that lifting restrictions in their area will lead to additional infections, with 54% saying they are very or extremely concerned that such steps will result in a spike of COVID-19 cases.

“Oh, I’d like to get my hair and nails done. It’s one of those little pleasures you take for granted,” said Kathy Bishop, a 59-year-old billing specialist who had pneumonia two years ago. “But I’m just going to suck it up. It’s not worth the risk.”

Bishop lives in the western suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, a state where Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is among the state chief executives leading a gradual reopening of businesses such as salons, barbershops, restaurants and bars. But even after nine weeks spent at home, Bishop is among the solid majority of Americans who support rigorous criteria for economic reopening that goes beyond wearing masks in public places and continued social distancing.

About 8 in 10 Americans say that it’s essential to reopening for people to return to self-quarantine if they are exposed to the virus. Roughly 6 in 10 also say having widespread testing for the coronavirus in their area is essential to reestablishing public activities, along with requiring people to keep 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart in most places and to wear face masks when they’re near others outside their homes.

Nearly as telling as the public’s appetite for rigorous precaution: Close to half say it is essential that a vaccine be available before public life resumes. A third say that’s important but not essential.

Taken together, the findings suggest that while some Americans are anxious to get back to business as usual, most don’t see the country returning anytime soon to what once was considered normal. Instead, Americans largely envision a protracted period of physical distancing, covered faces and intermittent quarantines ahead, perhaps until a vaccine is available.

Joe Yeskewicz, of Middleboro, Massachusetts, said he believes a vaccine is a must for his town of 23,000 south of Boston to fully reopen. He’s among the nearly 8 in 10 Americans who don’t expect one to be ready before the end of the year.

“It is so novel, so unpredictable and so terribly, terribly contagious,” the 76-year-old retired teacher and college professor said of the virus. “The vaccine predictably could take years because it has to undergo a vigorous testing program for it to be effective and safe. Regardless of the optimism, this is going to take a while.”

The latest AP-NORC survey was conducted over this past weekend, before Monday’s news of positive results in a clinical trial of a potential vaccine. It found that a solid majority of about 6 in 10 Americans are in favor of requiring people to stay in their homes except for essential errands, with about a third of the country strongly behind that approach.

While still resolute, support for such measures to contain the coronavirus has slipped in the past month — 80% were in favor of stay-at-home orders in April. The new survey found that 69% now favor restricting gatherings to 10 people or fewer, down from 82% in April.

Those declines are largely driven by changes in attitudes among Republicans, as Trump and several GOP governors have aggressively pressed for and moved ahead with reopening businesses and public places. Some people in Wisconsin headed straight for the local tavern last week after the conservative-controlled state Supreme Court upheld the GOP-controlled legislature’s appeal of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order.

Just 45% of Republicans now say they favor stay-at-home orders, while about as many are opposed. A month ago, 70% of Republicans backed them. Among Democrats, 78% favor stay-at-home orders, down from 91% in April.

Only about a third of Republicans say they are very or extremely concerned about the possibility of additional infections if restrictions are lifted, compared to three-quarters of Democrats.

Peggy Dullum, a 65-year-old Republican and retired state health care worker from suburban Sacramento, California, said she once supported strict lockdown measures to contain the virus. But she now thinks they have outlived their purpose.

“If they’d have opened all retail, it would have spread out social activity rather than congesting it in those few retail locations where people crowded without masks,” Dullum said. “Make everybody wear a mask, instead of making it voluntary, and we probably could have kept the economy moving at a solid pace during the second month.”

But Yeskewicz, the Democratic-leaning independent from Massachusetts, shakes his head — including at the small but vocal pockets of protesters, at times armed and brandishing Confederate flags, who complain that leaders who back continued safety measures are doing so out of anything but concern for public health.

“We can’t just arbitrarily restore privileges simply because people are so desperate they can’t stand it any more,” Yeskewicz said. “It’s not about people’s rights being violated. They are trying to keep you alive, you bozos!”

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Fingerhut reported from Washington.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,056 adults was conducted May 14-18 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/