Public approval of state governors and President Donald Trump over their response to the COVID-19 crisis has dropped over the last couple of months, although Republican governors in Democrat-leaning states have the highest approval, and the vast majority of governors have significantly higher approval ratings than the president, according to a new national survey led by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities.
The findings—released this week amid a record-breaking increase in new cases of SARS-CoV-2, which prompted some states to pause reopening plans—revealed people’s attitudes toward the response to the crisis of the president and their states’ governors. It is the fifth in a series of surveys the researchers have been conducting since April examining attitudes and behaviors regarding COVID-19 in the United States.
David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer and information sciences at Northeastern, and one of the researchers who conducted the study, says the latest numbers suggest “a systematic decline in approval for the president and 90 percent of the governors.”
