Thirty-three percent (33%) of voters believe the president has the legal authority to order private companies to impose a vaccine requirement. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 45% disagree and 22% are not sure.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats believe the president has such authority. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans say he does not. Among Independent voters, 23% believe the president has the authority and 48% do not.
Despite the fact that only 33% believe the president has the legal authority to act, 54% at least somewhat favor the president’s mandate order. Thirty-seven percent (37%) are opposed.
Eighty-two percent (82%) of Democrats favor the president’s action while 57% of Republicans disagree. Independent voters are evenly divided.
Data released earlier showed that 66% of voters are close to resuming their normal life in terms of going out socially, traveling, and interacting with others in person. If they tested positive for COVID, 68% believe it is likely they would recover quickly with only minor symptoms.
Still, pessimism about the pandemic remains high. Just 28%believe the worst is behind us. Forty-five percent (45%) believe the worst is yet to come. That matches the most pessimistic assessment since the vaccines rolled out in January.
* Is the worst of the pandemic behind us, or is it still to come?
28% Behind us
45% Still to Come
27% Not Sure
* For all companies with more than 100 employees, President Biden has mandated that they must require their workers to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. Do you favor or oppose this proposal?
32% Strongly favor
22% Somewhat favor
12% Somewhat oppose
25% Strongly oppose
9% Not sure
* Regardless of whether you favor or oppose the vaccine mandates, does the president have the legal authority to order private companies to impose a vaccine requirement?
33% Yes
45% No
22% Not sure
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Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left more than seven years ago and has had no involvement since that time.
Methodology
The survey of 1,200 Registered Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on September 14-15, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 2.8 percentage points.
