Most Republicans are rallying behind President Donald Trump’s calls for a quick reopening of businesses closed by coronavirus shutdowns, while Democrats strongly favor a more cautious approach
The country is now nearly evenly split over whether businesses like gyms, hair salons and shopping malls should resume operating in the next month, in a notable shift from finding Americans overwhelmingly supported stay-at-home measures even if that meant furthering economic pain.
But that change is largely being fueled by a widening partisan gap that’s unusual for a public health crisis.“What we have here is a very real partisan split that you don't expect to find in a public health epidemic,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor of health policy and political analysis who helped design the poll. “I think the president and many Republican leaders in the Congress have really defined getting the economy going as a critical issue, where Democrats don't buy into that focus.” Just over 60 percent of Republicans said they supported reopening nonessential businesses in their states, about double the 29 percent of Democrats who responded the same way.. Just over half of independents said those businesses should come back online. While many people gave their governor high marks for their response to the health and economic crises, African Americans were more critical of their governors' performance — a reflection of how many of their communities have been devastated by the pandemic. The poll was taken earlier this month, shortly after several governors had begun lifting shutdown orders and Trump urged some states to move faster during a televised town hall at the Lincoln Memorial — a message he's kept hammering. Virtually every state since then has begun easing those measures, though many haven’t met Trump administration guidelines calling for a major ramp-up in testing and a two-week decline in cases. Health experts, including some federal officials like infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci, have warned of a resurgence of infections and deaths if states jump-start their economies without adequate safety measures in place. “The consequences could be really serious,” Fauci warned last week during
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