Governors continue to get high marks for virus response, poll says

Americans continue to rate well their governors’ handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

A new Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found American adults gave governors across the country a 56% approval for their handling of the pandemic, with just 38% saying they did a bad job on COVID-19.

The federal government received slightly lower marks, with just 50% saying it had done a good job and 37% saying the opposite.

While governors’ heads remain above water, their popularity has dropped sharply over the past year. A Monmouth Poll conducted in the pandemic’s early months put approval ratings for governors above 70%, though those ratings have declined over the course of the year.

“Neither governors nor federal health agencies are getting quite the widespread praise they enjoyed early in the pandemic. But both groups continue to garner fairly positive reviews one year on,” said Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray.

President Joe Biden also saw a majority approve of his handling of the pandemic, with 57% saying he’s done a good job and just 31% saying he hasn’t. The figures are virtually unchanged from January.

But partisanship on the vaccine persists. A little more than a third, 36%, of Republicans say they’d prefer to skip the vaccine, while just 6% of Democrats say the same. That’s down from 42% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats in January, but reluctance among independents is up to 31%, from 25% at the start of the year.

Overall, 24% of Americans say they’ll never get vaccinated against COVID-19.

White Americans, at 28%, remain the most unwilling to get the vaccine. They reluctance actually grew from 26% to 28% since January. Unwillingness among non-white Americans has dropped by greater margins, to 14% from 22% three months ago.

“Partisanship has always been the main dividing line on the pandemic,” Murray said. “A new challenge for the Biden administration is the possibility of more independents joining Republicans in becoming vaccine skeptics.”

Most Americans are satisfied with vaccine rollouts — 42% somewhat and 18% very — thought 35% are very or somewhat dissatisfied with the same. But satisfaction there cuts across party lines, with members of both major parties and those unaffiliated with either giving rollouts positive marks.

At the same time, worries over family members contracting the virus have dropped sharply since the start of the year. Now, just 40% are very concerned, down from 60% in January. Another 28% are somewhat concerned.

“Public optimism is mixed as we clock one year of living with the pandemic. The wider availability of vaccines seems to have alleviated some immediate concerns about falling ill that had grown through the end of last year,” Murray said. However, most Americans feel that ‘normal’ is still many months away and perhaps a little farther down the road than initially hoped for during Biden’s first days in office.”

The poll had a sample of 802 adults and a 3.5% margin of error.