Following a dramatic collapse over two months, public confidence concerning the pandemic has stabilized. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 29% of voters now believe the worst of the pandemic is behind us. That’s up a point from a week ago. However, confidence is still down five points from a two weeks ago and down 27 points over the past two months.
Forty-three percent (43%) of voters now believe the worst is yet to come. That’s down two points from a week ago, but up five from two weeks ago, and up 23 points since late May.
The last two weeks have recorded the most pessimistic assessments measured since December of last year. Beginning with the rollout of the vaccines in January, confidence grew fairly steadily for five months.
Women, by a 46% to 23% margin, believe the worst is yet to come. Men are more evenly divided: 39% fear that the worst is still to come while 35% of men believe the worst is behind us.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Hispanic voters believe the worst is behind us. That view is shared by 30% of White voters and 20% of Black voters.
Other data shows that 57% of voters are comfortable attending indoor social events without masks. Perhaps surprisingly, that figure is virtually unchanged since May.
Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters oppose new lockdowns. That total includes 34% who want to see a further easing of restrictions.
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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 by Scott Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from August 5-7, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Most respondents were contacted online or via text while 236 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.
