Poll: Almost half of Mich. Republicans don’t want vaccine
A new poll of likely voters in Michigan showed that more than a quarter don’t plan to get vaccinated for COVID-19, a finding that, if accurate, could extend the length of time it takes to move past the pandemic and could put more lives at risk.
The poll released Tuesday also found that while large percentages of self-identified Democrats and independents plan to get vaccinated, nearly half of Republicans — 47% — do not, compared with 46% who plan to be vaccinated.
The poll of 600 randomly selected Michigan voters was done Feb. 19-25 by EPIC-MRA of Lansing and released exclusively to the Free Press and its outstate media partners. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
“What we’re dealing with is a bizarre situa
tion,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, a renowned epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who last year led the committee that assessed the first two vaccines to be approved. “There is enormous interest in one group of people who are aware of the situation and who are desperate to get the vaccine. Then we have this other group that is not interested. It is very unusual.”
Last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN it could take getting 70%85% of the American population vaccinated in order to reach “herd immunity,” the level at which enough people are protected from a virus that its spread is widely contained.
The EPIC-MRA poll found that while 70% of all of those surveyed plan to definitely or probably get a vaccine when it becomes available to them, 27% will not or probably will not and 3% were undecided. And while a larger percentage — 78% — of those living in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties plan to get vaccinated, a much smaller percentage — 65% — of those living in the rest of the state expect to do so.
Some national polls have shown similar results regarding the level of resistance among some Republicans to be vaccinated. The EPICMRA poll also indicated that college-educated Michiganders were more likely to get the vaccine, as were those who described themselves as moderate or liberal politically, compared with conservatives.
Whites and Blacks were about equally likely to get the vaccine, with 71% of each group saying they would do so, and men and women were also about equally as likely to do so. Older people — who are more at risk from the virus — said they were much more likely to get the vaccine — with 75% or more saying they planned to do so — than younger age groups.
The poll also indicated that people against abortion rights were less likely to get it than those who favor those rights, with 51% saying they would get it, 42% who said they would not and 7% were undecided. This compares with 85% of abortion rights supporters who said they would get the vaccine, 13% who would not and 1% who were undecided. Voters surveyed who had children also were less likely to get it, with 52% saying they would, 43% who would
not and 3% undecided. While for those without children, 77% said they would get the shot, 20% said they would not and 3% were undecided.
Ninety percent of Democrats and 80% of independents said they would get the shot.
EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn said the results continue to indicate that a large bloc of Republicans “have never really taken the COVID-19 threat very seriously” and that Republican leaders should urge supporters to get vaccinated. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida on Sunday, former President Donald Trump did just that, telling “everybody, go get your shot.”
News reports have indicated that in the wake of last year’s misinformation campaign around claims by Trump and others that the 2020 election was corrupt, falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines proliferated online as well.
While herd immunity could be reached by an increasing the number of infections, that also risks a greater number of illnesses and deaths. Monto said there still needs to be more research, however, into how many infections
have already occurred and whether that changes the percentage of people who need to be vaccinated in order for herd immunity to be reached. “The other wild card now is the variant (of the virus) which may raise the percentage that needs to be immune” to reach the target, he said.
The federal Food and Drug Administration authorized a third vaccine, this one by Johnson & Johnson, over the weekend, joining those already authorized by Pfizer and Moderna.
Michiganders split on Trump conviction
The poll indicated that Michigan voters were deeply divided over the question as to whether Trump should have been convicted by the U.S. Senate for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, with 48% saying he should have been and 47% saying he should not have been. Five percent were undecided.
A 57-43 majority in the Senate last month voted to convict Trump, including seven Republicans, but that fell short of the 67 votes needed to convict and bar him from running for office in the future. A group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to keep Congress from finalizing the results of the Nov. 3 election for President Joe Biden after Trump continued to insist he lost because of fraudulent votes, despite there being no substantiated evidence to back up those claims.
Unsurprisingly, the poll results broke along partisan lines, with 89% of Democrats believing Trump should have been convicted and 89% of Republicans believing he should not have been. Self-described independents were split with 47% in favor of conviction, 42% against and 11% undecided.
The overall partisan split of the survey sample was 45% self-identified Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, 41% Republicans or Republican-leaning independents and 11% nonpartisan independents.
Biden’s job approval, favorable ratings diverge
A month after his inauguration, likely voters appeared split on Biden’s performance to date. While 49% of those surveyed said they had a favorable attitude toward the new president, with 45% saying they had an unfavorable opinion, that sentiment was flipped when it came to his job approval ratings,
On that measure, 49% gave Biden negative marks of just fair or poor on his job performance, compared with 45% who gave him positive marks of excellent or good.
It appeared that Democrats and independents had a generally more favorable view toward Biden’s job performance to date: Among Democrats, 93% had a favorable opinion of him, but 86% gave him excellent or good performance ratings; among independents, 46% had a favorable view — compared with 34% with an unfavorable view and 20% undecided — but 45% said he’d done just a fair or poor job to date, while 34% said he’d done excellent or good. Twenty-one percent were undecided.
Biden was still seen in a more favorable light than Trump. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said they had an unfavorable opinion of the former president compared with 40% who had a favorable view of him.