President Donald Trump and the Utah State Legislature don’t get good marks in their handling of the coronavirus, a new UtahPolicy.com/KUTV 2News poll shows.
But Gov. Gary Herbert, local city and town officials, local health departments and local businesses do get fine ratings in fighting the pandemic, Y2 Analytics finds in a new statewide survey.
Fifty-five percent of Utahns say Trump is doing a “poor” job or “only a fair” job in fighting the coronavirus outbreak. Forty-five percent say he’s doing poorly, the lowest ranking possible.
While 45 percent say Trump is doing a “good” or an “excellent” job in battling the plague.
The GOP-controlled Legislature, which has passed a few laws and changed budgets in an April special session concerning the state’s fight against the virus, does only slightly better than Trump.
Fifty-two percent give lawmakers a poor/only fair job approval on the coronavirus, while 48 percent say they have done a “good” or “excellent” job.
As Utahns may know, Herbert was conducting daily briefings/press conferences on his administration’s battling of the virus until a week ago, when he started having less frequent briefings. However, his top coronavirus-fighting experts still conduct almost daily briefings, most of which are covered live by local TV stations and live-streamed online.
Herbert, himself, gets good ratings by Utah voters: 67 percent said he’s done a “good” or “excellent” job fighting the virus.
Only 30 percent — or about a third — of Utahns don’t think he’s doing a very good job.
But real praise goes to local city officials, local health departments, and businesses owned locally.
Local businesses, many of whom have had to shut down or operate in restricted manners, are doing very well with handling the virus — 80 percent “good” or “excellent,” while only 21 percent “only fair” or “poor.”
It’s likely folks are thinking about their local grocery stores, which have remained open even though employees have put themselves at risk of getting the virus, or some local restaurants, which had to go to curbside pickup only as their in-dining closed.
Local health departments and county officials, which are making some of the tough decisions, also have high numbers.
Seventy-seven, or three-fourths, of Utahns say they are doing a good job, while only 23 percent disapprove of them.
Local city and town officials are doing well, too. Seventy-four percent approve of what they are doing fighting the virus, only 27 percent disapprove.
As might be expected, how Utahns see Trump’s virus-fighting efforts are very partisan. Republicans like what he’s doing, while political independents and Democrats really, really disapprove.
90 percent of “strong” Republicans approve of Trump’s coronavirus actions.
But Y2 finds that 40 percent — a goodly number — of those who said they are “not so strong” Republicans say Trump is doing “only fair” or “poor” in leading the fight against the virus.
Political independents disapprove of Trump’s actions, 72-28 percent.
While 99 percent of “strong” Democrats think Trump is doing badly.
For weeks on end, Trump held daily briefings/press conferences, a few dragging on for two hours or more, where his misstated facts about fighting the virus and said some really strange stuff — like maybe people should ingest bleach or have powerful lights inside their bodies to kill the virus.
It’s interesting that Utahns give the highest marks not to the folks that are fighting the virus on the front lines — government and health care — but to businesses, the free market/economic aspect of fighting the coronavirus — 80 percent saying businesses are doing a “good” or “excellent” job, with 28 percent, nearly one-fifth, saying local businesses are doing an “excellent” job — the highest among the groups.
Y2 polled 1,080 voters from May 9-15; the margin of error being plus or minus 3 percentage points.
