The partisan gulf in coronavirus concern is shrinking
Republicans and Independents have become increasingly worried about the pandemic in the past week
By Emily D. Bello-Pardo, Monika Nayak, and John Ray
Amid bipartisan consensus on the need for an economic response to COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, new polling data suggests Americans have started to wake up to the risks posed by the virus. As part of our efforts to track the 2020 election, YouGov Blue fields its Core tracker, which includes national surveys of the general electorate. In this post, we use recent waves of the Core to analyze how responses to coronavirus have changed over the last few weeks.
Across different demographics, voters are increasingly worried about the coronavirus
Voters have reported clear increases in how worried they are about the virus itself. We leveraged three waves of the YouGov Blue Core tracker where we’ve included coronavirus items, where a total of 3,525 self-identified registered voters answered a question regarding their personal worries about the potential spread of the coronavirus. We asked, “How worried are you about the spread of coronavirus?” The available response options ranged from “very worried” to “not worried at all.” The share of voters who report they are very worried has nearly doubled from wave one, with 22 percent saying they are very worried as of March 13 compared to 39 percent saying they are very worried as of this week. The share of voters who are not that worried has been cut in half, going from 26 percent in wave 1 to 13 percent in wave 3. Likewise, the share of voters who are not at all worried went from 10 percent to 4 percent. Approximately 83 percent of voters are now very or somewhat worried about the virus.
The most striking changes lie between the latest two waves, with the proportion of respondents who are very worried increasing by 13 percentage points from 26 percent to 39 percent. Since the beginning of fielding these particular items, we see the share of voters who are very worried about the virus increase by a net 17 percentage points. The share of respondents who are somewhat worried remained stable across waves (42 percent in wave 1 and 44 percent in waves 2 and 3).
We observe similar trends when looking at voters by party. The share of respondents who are very worried has increased dramatically among all three groups. Democrats see a net 17 percentage points increase (going from 34 percent in wave 1 to 51 percent in wave 3), independents see a net 11 percentage points increase (20 percent to 31 percent), and Republicans see a net 16 percentage points increase (10 percent to 26 percent). There is also a 12 percentage points increase in the share of Republicans who are somewhat worried, going from 37 percent in wave 1 to 49 percent in wave 3. Across party affiliation, there are also decreases in the share of voters who are not worried at all.
We also see similar results when looking at different age groups — every age group’s share of voters who are very worried increases significantly between wave 1 and wave 3. Among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, there has been a 25 percentage point increase in the share who report being very worried about the coronavirus. Similarly, among those who are 30–44 in age, the amount of voters very concerned has increased by 14 percentage points. That number is 8 percentage points among those who are 45–54, 20 percentage points among 55–64, and 19 percentage points among voters who are 65+. Across age groups, we also see the share of voters who are “not worried at all” or “not that worried” drop between waves 1 and 3.
Voters across partisan identifications and age groups are becoming increasingly worried about the coronavirus. While some early reporting suggested that older voters were perhaps not as worried about coronavirus, our data shows voters are very worried about coronavirus, even accounting for age.
What predicts being very or somewhat worried about the coronavirus?
Who is most worried about the coronavirus? We conducted a regression analysis to understand factors that are correlated with being very or somewhat worried about the coronavirus. In this analysis, we included typically relevant factors used in political analysis as control variables: party identification, age, whether the respondent self-identifies as a “born again” Christian, whether the respondent has children, the type of place that the respondent lives in, race, gender, household income, media use variables, and education. We also included some additional independent variables accounting for voters’ social media usage, for the passage of time across all three waves of our coronavirus battery, and for news consumption.
The following chart shows the results of this regression. Each of the dots in the chart represents the specific regression coefficient for each predictor, and the horizontal lines around the dot represent the 95 percent confidence interval. Estimates below zero mean that that specific group reported less worrying about the coronavirus, while estimates above zero represent more. If one of these intervals crosses the vertical dashed line — i.e., if that estimate can not be confidently ruled either positive or negative — that estimate is not statistically significant. Points on the right side of the dotted gray line crossing zero indicate positive correlations — that is, as a voter’s value for that variable increases, the chance that they reported being very or somewhat worried about coronavirus increases, as well. Vice versa for points on the left side of the dotted gray line, which indicate negative correlations. For ease of reading this graph, we highlight estimates that are statistically significant in a darker shade of grey and those that are insignificant in a lighter shade.
Time is a significant predictor of being worried about the coronavirus: those who answer this question at a later wave are significantly more likely to say they are very or somewhat worried. This is consistent with our findings in the previous analysis that showed voters reporting increasing worry over time.
We also see that Democrats are more likely to be very or somewhat worried than Independents are (note that, in this analysis, the reference category for party identification is independents). This finding is unsurprising, given the differences in the share of being very worried and somewhat worried that we see across partisan identifications. Republicans, however, are not significantly less worried than independents, indicating that independents and Republicans are more similar in their likelihood to be very or somewhat worried about the virus than are independents and Democrats.
Finally, respondents who reported they used Facebook or watched CNN were more likely to report being worried about COVID-19.
Americans continue to report behavioral changes in response to the virus
Last week, we reported on the behavioral response among the American electorate. We found that voters reported responding unevenly to the coronavirus pandemic, with significant differences across party lines. We re-fielded the same behavioral response item in the two latest waves of the Core. That item asked:
Some people are going about their daily lives at the moment as normal, while others have had their routines change dramatically as COVID-19 has spread. How would you say that each of your following behaviors have changed over the last week as a result of the coronavirus?
Handwashing: “Amount of times you wash your hands every day”
Changed Travel: “Travel plans over the next month”
Working From Home: “Working from home / telecommuting”
Stockpiling Food: “Buying non-perishable food or increasing the amount of groceries you usually purchase”
Stockpiling Medicines: “Buying flu or cold medicine, or making sure to have enough prescription medicines to last three months”
Child And Elder Care: “Changing plans to account for caring for children, the elderly, or disabled family members whose typical daytime care, such as school and support programs, have closed”
Social Distancing: “Canceling existing social engagements or deciding against new social engagements you might otherwise have made, a practice known as social distancing”
Below, we calculated the net change for each behavior in each wave, collapsing together voters who said that their behavior changed dramatically, somewhat, or a little and then subtracted from it the number of voters who reported no change in their behavior in the past week. Between wave 2 and wave 3, many voters reported they have begun adopting behavioral changes in response to coronavirus. The following graph showcases this difference in net changes for each behavior we polled:
More than other activities, voters have begun engaging in more social distancing (a 20 percentage point change from the previous wave), and voters have also increased the amount of stockpiling (food: 15 percentage points, medicine: 11 percentage points) and handwashing behavior (11 percentage points) in response to coronavirus. We see only a 9 percentage points difference in working from home.
We see some of the largest changes among Republican and independent voters. This is intuitive, as we found elsewhere that Democrats had reported higher changes overall: Since Democrats started from a higher baseline in wave 2, it makes sense that they report less changes than Republicans and independents. The largest differences among Democrats are social distancing (12 percentage points), working from home (10 percentage points), and stockpiling medicines (8 percentage points). Unlike previous waves of the Core, here, we are finding Republicans and independents are following suit with Democrats in adopting new behaviors in response to coronavirus.
Among Republican voters, all but one behavior had a double-digit shift from the previous wave. We see a 29 percentage points change in self-reported social distancing, a 22 percentage points change in stockpiling food, and an 18 percentage points difference in changed travel. Fewer voters reported adopting work-from-home behavior, but movement in that direction is positive on net. These differences are consistent with a delayed response among Republicans in the second wave of the YouGov Blue Core tracker, compared to Democrats who reported adopting many of these behaviors in the previous wave. We see similarly large shifts among independents. Among independents, about 21 percent more voters report stockpiling medicine, 19 percent more report engaging in social distancing, and 19 percent more report stockpiling food.
These behavioral changes are encouraging, and align with the public health recommendations to slow the spread of the pandemic. However, the latest survey came out of the field before President Trump signaled his desire to reopen the economy by Easter. Future waves of this poll will help us look into whether this desire leads to individuals being more lax about these behavioral interventions.
Conclusion
We see encouraging movement among American voters toward behavioral changes that are in line with public health guidelines. Particularly, there has been an increase in social distancing and other health-protective behaviors since we first fielded the behavioral question, and these changes are large across partisan identifications. Moreover, there has been a significant increase in worry about the coronavirus among the American electorate across our three survey waves.
Methods: This analysis is based on three survey waves conducted by YouGov on the internet of registered voters likely to vote in the general election in November, 2020. The first survey wave was fielded by YouGov Blue from March 09, 2020 to March 12, 2020, with weights ranging from 0.1 to 6.14 with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.67. The second wave was fielded by YouGov Blue from March 13, 2020 to March 17, 2020, with weights ranging from 0.05 to 6.04 with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.58. The third wave was fielded by YouGov Blue from March 20, 2020 to March 23, 2020, with weights ranging from 0.07 to 6.05 with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.62. All three waves were weighted according to gender, age, race, education, region, and past presidential vote based on the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey Registration and Voting Supplement, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
About YouGov Blue: YouGov Blue is a custom research division of YouGov that works with Democratic and progressive clients. Leveraging YouGov’s panels, methodology, and technology infrastructure, we are pioneering novel capabilities for progressive clients.
About YouGov Blue Core: This survey data was fielded as part of the YouGov Blue Core. The YouGov Blue Core is a subscription polling service for the 2020 election, collecting over 15,000 survey responses each month. The Core tracks opinion for both the Democratic Primary and the General Election in 2020, conducting polls at the national and state levels, as well as among demographic subgroups of interest. For more information, please reach out to YouGov [dot] Blue [at] yougov [dot] com to see how the YouGov Blue Core can fit your needs.
