American Attitudes Toward COVID-19: More Trumpism Than Partisanship

Abstract

We investigate how support for President Donald Trump, beyond partisanship, guided Americans’ attitudes toward COVID-19. This speaks to not just how “Trumpism” and the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic influenced public attitudes but to the larger issue of how Trump’s hold on voters within and beyond the Republican Party provides further evidence that leaders surpass the role of parties in influencing public opinion. Using longitudinal data with individual fixed-effects, we find that from the start of the pandemic, support for Trump above and beyond partisanship drove public attitudes capturing skepticism toward COVID-19, fears of personal vulnerability, compliance with public-safety measures, and viewing the pandemic in racist terms. Between March and August 2020, this gulf in attitudes between Trump voters and non-supporters, and between Republicans and Democrats, widened; the widening was more pronounced between Trump voters and non-supporters. Trump’s influence on Independents and non-voters also grew over the same period. While the use of terms like “China virus” was related to partisanship and support for Trump, we find an increase in awareness across groups that these terms were racist.