Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters nationwide are comfortable going to an indoor restaurant or bar without wearing a mask. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 41% are not comfortable going maskless in such social settings with a large number of people.
The survey also found that 75% think it’s likely that many unvaccinated people will be present at large gatherings and social settings. However, if invited to a social event with a large number of people, most voters (52%) are not likely to ask whether everyone attending has been vaccinated. Forty-three percent (43%) say they’d be at least somewhat likely to ask.
Those totals include 19% who would be Very Likely to ask and 30% who would be not at all likely to ask.
Among those who have been vaccinated already, 51% say they’d be somewhat likely to ask if everyone attending has been vaccinated. Among those in no rush to get the vaccine, just 25% are likely to ask. That falls to 15% among those who will never get vaccinated.
Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans are comfortable going to a bar or restaurant without wearing a mask. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democrats are not. Independent voters are evenly divided.
Data released earlier showed that just fewer than half of all voters are aware of the new CDC guidelines on mask wearing. Most Republican voters (56%) are aware of the new CDC guidelines. Most Democrats (57%) are not. Given this partisan divide, it is interesting to note that earlier surveys found that Democrats were overwhelmingly likely to view the CDC guidelines as reliable and fact based. Republicans, by a 2-to-1 margin saw the agency as partisan and political.
This is consistent with other data suggesting that CDC guidelines have little impact on individual behavior. Only 33% of voters claim to have followed news about CDC guidelines very closely. Additionally, as of a month ago, 66% of voters had already ignored CDC guidelines by taking part in activities discouraged by the agency.
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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 1,500 Registered Voters was conducted by Scott Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from May 20-22, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Most respondents were contacted online or via text while 216 were contacted using automated phone polling techniques. Online respondents were selected from a list of Registered Voters and through a process of Random Digital Engagement. 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.
