A few weeks back, a national survey was released that covered a number of questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The approval rating for Governor Beshear (81%) got all the headlines, but I wondered if there were any other interesting statistics buried in the numbers. So, I downloaded the report and started looking. And I came up with some things.
Before I get to those, though, let’s nail down the who and when of the survey. From the opening of the report:
The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States
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- Partners: Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University
- Authors: David Lazer (Northeastern University); Matthew A. Baum (Harvard University); Katherine Ognyanova (Rutgers University); John Della Volpe (Harvard University)
- With: Alexi Quintana, Hanyu Chwe, Stefan McCabe (Northeastern University)
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From April 17 to 26 we conducted a large, 50 state survey, the results of which are presented in this report. The first section of the report looks at the nation as a whole while the second section focuses on individual states and comparisons across states. We surveyed 22,912 individuals across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. The survey was conducted on 17-26 April 2020 by PureSpectrum via an online, nonprobability sample, with state-level representative quotas for race/ethnicity, age and gender. In addition to balancing on these dimensions, we reweighted our data using the same demographic characteristics.
And, for the stats geeks among us, the number of Kentucky people surveyed was about 480.
Nation-wide pull-out facts from the survey
- More than 80% of Americans supported closing non-essential businesses, and support for limiting restaurants, closing schools, canceling sporting and entertainment events, and group gatherings exceeds 90%.
- Social distancing measures were supported by 94% of respondents.
- All of the above received large majorities, across all political parties and across all states.
- A bipartisan consensus opposed a rapid reopening of the economy, with a median reopening delay of four to six weeks.
- The most trusted groups and organizations regarding the crisis embody expertise, including an 88% trust rating for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and a remarkable 96% trust rating for hospitals and doctors.
- State and city governments are more trusted than the federal government, with 81% indicating trust in their state government and 82% in their city government, compared with only 57% in Congress (13% “not at all”), and 51% in President Trump (32% “not at all”).
- President Trump’s approval rating (in handling the pandemic) is below that of every governor in the United States.
Kentucky-specific pull-out facts from the survey
This, of course, was what piqued my interest in the first place. Where there any surveyed areas where Kentucky was strikingly different from the rest of the country? Were there any surprises in the data about Kentucky and COVID-19?
You may be disappointed to learn that in many of the survey questions, Kentucky tracked pretty closely to the national numbers. We in Kentucky are worried about many of the same things, we’ve been impacted the same way, and so on.
However, there were some things worth pointing out. Here they are:
- As noted before, Governor Beshear had the second-highest approval rating at 81% of any governor in the country. Only DeWine of Ohio is higher, at 83%.
- President Trump’s press briefings are a significant source of information for Kentuckians, coming in at 45% of the state watching those briefings, which is just behind network television at 47%. This is 5 points higher than the nation as a whole, and is fourth among all sources (local television is first, followed by friends and family).
- Note that there was no question in the survey about watching your governor’s press briefings.
- And yet, even though many of us watch the Prez, his approval rating in handling the COVID-19 outbreak is just 51% in the state, compared to Beshear’s 81%.
- Trump’s approval in the rest of the nation in handling the outbreak is just 44%.
- Kentucky keeps up with the rest of the nation on the various health recommendations (washing hands, disinfecting, and so on) — EXCEPT for wearing a mask when out. About 36% of our citizens either don’t wear a mask at all or only wear one occasionally, which is much higher than the average for the rest of the country (25%).
- Kentuckians trust their state and city governments to “do the right thing” with regard to the pandemic at a higher level than the rest of the country. And, their trust of the White House to do the right thing is 20 points lower.
- Kentuckians want to delay the reopening longer than the rest of the country.
Reference documents
One of my frustrations with the survey report is that they didn’t put the national medians in the state tables. So, in order to do the comparisons, I wound up building a set of small tables with just the national and Kentucky numbers. After building it, I thought some others might want to see it, so I’ve included it below. The survey report is included as well, in case you want to dig into the cross-tabs. Note that the cross-tabs are only at the national level.
Raw Survey Data, National vs Kentucky
COVID19 Consortium Report – April 2020
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