Voters don’t want police fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccination, according to a Washington Times poll that found Americans see public safety as a serious policy issue.
By a 59-31 margin, voters said a mandate on police would leave departments struggling for trained officers at a time when violent crime is increasing. Democrats were open to vaccine mandates, but independents and Republicans were vehemently opposed.
The survey, conducted by OnMessage Inc. from Nov. 19 to Dec. 3, tested a wide range of hot-button issues among more than 4,000 registered voters and found surprising areas of consensus.
Some 80% see rising inflation and supply chain issues as a “crisis.” That notion spans party lines.
About 70% of voters say the southern border, which is experiencing an unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants, is in “crisis.” That, too, spanned party lines.
President Biden, presiding over both of those crises, was underwater in his job approval, with 47% saying they liked what they see and 50% who didn’t. That 3-point net unfavorable rating is better for Mr. Biden than other recent national surveys, which show larger disapproval gaps.
Vice President Kamala Harris fared even worse than her boss, with just 42% approving of her job performance, compared with 50% disapproving. The major difference between the president and vice president is among self-identified independents: 37% approve of Mr. Biden’s performance, compared with 30% for Ms. Harris.
At a time when government spending is shattering records and Congress is pondering a round of $1.75 trillion in climate spending and expanded social safety net programs, voters expressed concerns.
Some 62% said Uncle Sam already “has too many welfare-type programs” luring people out of the workforce and creating a dependency on the government for survival. Even among Democrats, that sentiment was shared by 44%, compared with 46% who disagreed.
Yet voters said they want a more active government. Some 49% said the government should “do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people,” and just 37% said they feel the government is doing “too many things” that could be better left to the private sector.
Even among Republicans, nearly one-third said the government should do more.
Nathan Klein, the pollster at OnMessage, said the Republican numbers would have been minuscule a decade ago during debates on Obamacare and the tea party movement’s heyday.
“That flipped in the Trump years,” he said. “Many of those folks are looking for a more active government.”
That doesn’t mean they want more spending or more regulations, he said. Instead, they want a proactive government working on what they care about.
Still, the parties deeply differ about what that should be.
Asked to rate the top issues facing the country, voters put the economy first, COVID-19 second and immigration third. But there were huge variations between the parties.
Republicans ranked immigration and the economy tied at the top, followed by national security.
Democrats ranked COVID-19 at the top, followed by the economy and social justice issues.
That fixation on the pandemic reaches to the very top of the Democratic Party, where Mr. Biden has imposed vaccine mandates on federal employees and businesses and said local police who don’t get the shot should leave their jobs or be fired.
“Yes,” he said when CNN posed the question at a town hall in October.
The Times tested a slightly different proposition, asking whether voters were more in favor of a mandate on all police to get vaccinated or in favor of making sure cops stay on the beat.
Given that choice, 59% said they wanted officers on the job, versus 31% who said vaccination was paramount.
On national security, more than three-quarters said domestic crime is “a real and growing threat.” Still, asked the biggest long-term danger to U.S. safety, voters put China at the top, over terrorism, crime and Russia.
About 70% of voters said the U.S. needs to do more to confront China, Russia and Iran.
In one fascinating finding, 49% rated White supremacists as the bigger threat, compared with 38% who cited Islamic jihadis.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
