People still support mask mandates

One more tidbit from the UT/Trib poll for October.

A majority of Texas voters support requiring masks at schools and indoor public places and allowing businesses to require their employees to be vaccinated, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.

This comes as Gov. Greg Abbott has banned vaccine requirements by all Texas entities, including private businesses and health care facilities, and mask mandates by local government and state agencies.

A survey of 1,200 registered voters in Texas showed that 57% of voters support mask requirements in indoor public spaces based on local conditions, while 58% support mask requirements for students and staff in public schools. Forty percent oppose the requirements at indoor public places and 39% oppose the requirements at schools.

Fifty-four percent of Texas voters also support allowing businesses to require employees to provide proof of vaccination or submit to frequent COVID-19 tests, compared to 43% who are opposed. Meanwhile, a slight plurality is opposed to the same requirements for customers: 47% support them, while 49% are against.

Similarly, 54% of voters support and 43% oppose allowing public schools to require staff to either provide proof of vaccination or submit to frequent testing. Texas voters are nearly split on requiring students to adhere to the same measures: 49% oppose the idea and 48% support it.

Texans also leaned in favor of requiring vaccinations for admission to large events or activities, with polls showing that 47% of voters favor the vaccine passports while 43% oppose them.

Voters were fairly evenly split on whether they supported allowing government entities to require vaccines or COVID-19 tests for employees. Just 50% supported the requirements while 46% opposed.

Overall, there is a wide partisan divide on the issue of mandates. While Democrats surveyed overwhelmingly support them, there is still significant opposition among Republicans.

“As a whole, the state looks more in favor of mitigation efforts than the policy, but amongst the majority party there’s really not much appetite for many of these mitigation efforts,” said Joshua Blank, research director at the Texas Politics Project.

That’s true, and it’s what I’d expect as that has been the general pattern on all things that have been politicized these days, but with a caveat. If you look at the bar charts they included to show the partisan breakdown for some of these questions, Democrats are more in favor than Republicans are opposed, and in general independents are in favor, though by modest margins. For example, on the question of whether businesses should be allowed to mandate vaccines for their employees, Democrats favor it by an 89-9 margin, independents favor it by 53-41, and Republicans oppose it by 72-26. That’s more than enough to give it a fairly solid majority overall.

You can see a few more examples in the story, some of which are closer calls, and you can see all of the crosstabs here. They hadn’t included that in previous poll stories, probably because they wanted to publish them all before they spoiled them by showing the data ahead of time. I’ve got another post in the works based on a couple of interesting bits I saw in there, but for now the takeaway is that a campaign that is harshly critical of Abbott and Paxton for their unrelenting obstruction on masking and vaccination will find some purchase. If nothing else, it will fire up the base, and for sure we’re going to need all of that we can get.

Related Posts:

This entry was posted in The great state of Texas and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to People still support mask mandates

  1. Jason Hochman says:

    Why are the Democrats so keen on inflicting damage to the workers, and allowing the already over powerful companies to have more power over the workers, and more reasons to pry into the private lives of workers.

    It should be noted that the aggressors are those who want to have mandates and force their aggressive agenda onto others. The so called anti vaxx people are just normal people who want to be left alone, and who are fine with everyone else choosing if/when/where they want to get vaccinated, wear a mask or whatever else they feel is necessary.

    We have the most hate filled president I’ve seen in my life. Even more than Nixon. I saw the president with his derisive, mocking description of the peons, with his mocking voice saying, “I’um have the FREEDOM to kill ya wid my COVID!” Where’s the 25th amendment when you need it? IN between soiling himself and wandering around in a fog, this guy could do some real damage.

  2. mollusk says:

    Sheez. I’m beginning to miss Bill.

  3. C.L. says:

    Dr. Hochman and BD are cut from the same cloth, twin sons of different Mothers, of the same mindset, etc. They may even be the same poster/poser.

    #Trolls
    #Drivel

Comments are closed.