A large majority of Vermonters — 83% — approve of Gov. Phil Scott’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, according to a poll published Tuesday by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS.
The poll, which surveyed Vermonters on issues including the pandemic, race, and law enforcement, also found that 76% of the respondents approved of a statewide mask mandate, a requirement Scott put into place last week.
The poll found 40% of those asked personally know someone who has contracted Covid-19.
The poll surveyed 603 people between July 15 and July 28 and has a 4% margin of error. It did not include questions on voters’ candidate preferences.
Rich Clark, a professor of political science at Castleton University who directed the poll, said that Scott’s approval for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is “wildly high.”
But he noted that after Scott announced on July 24 that he was putting a mask mandate in place, his approval among Republicans dropped significantly.
Before Scott unveiled the mask mandate, the poll found 94% of Republicans supported Scott’s Covid-19 response. After, that number dropped to 64%, Clark said.
In total, the poll surveyed 337 people who identified as Democrats, 162 who identified as Republicans and 67 independents. The rest declined to provide party affiliation.
“It seemed that the dive came primarily from Republicans, who I think were supporting Scott because … part of what they liked about him was that there was no mandate,” Clark said.
“His loss really came within his own party, which comes right before a primary too,” he said.
The vast majority of Democrats — 96% — supported Scott’s pandemic response, Clark said.
The poll found that 22% of Vermonters are “very concerned” about the pandemic, while 44% are “somewhat concerned.” In contrast, 23% said they were “not too concerned” and 11% said they were “not concerned at all.”
When asked if Covid-19 posed a threat to their personal finances, 26% said it posed a major threat, 44% said a minor one, and 30% said it presented none at all. One percent said they were unsure, or didn’t answer the question.
Together, 77% of respondents were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about people from out of state coming into Vermont and spreading the virus.
Vermonters were divided on whether to reopen schools: 42% said they favored reopening K-12 schools, while 42% said they opposed. Eleven percent of respondents were unsure, and 1% declined to answer.
While the VPR/Vermont PBS poll comes days before the state’s primary elections on Aug. 11, unlike past polls, it did not ask respondents about which candidates they favored in statewide races.
In an interview last week, Mark Davis, the managing editor at VPR, said that the organizations were more interested in learning about the state’s feelings about the pandemic and race.
“We were really eager to hear from Vermonters about how they were experiencing the health crisis, the economic crisis, the racial strife,” Davis said.
“And at this moment, given limited resources and limited number of questions in the poll, we thought that was more important than sort of your typical horse race questions,” Davis added.
The poll asked questions about racism in Vermont including to what extent respondents believe it is a problem. It found that 24% said it was a “big problem,” 35% said it was “somewhat” of a problem, 25% said it was a “small problem” and 15% said it was no problem at all.
Sixteen percent of respondents said they believe that police in Vermont regularly discriminate against people of color, while 33% believe they occasionally discriminate against them. On the other hand, 29% said that police discrimination was rare and 15% said it never happened.
Clark said that this question broke down largely along party lines: 66% of Democrats said they believe the police regularly or occasionally discriminate against people of color, compared to 15% of Republicans. Only 6% of Democrats said that the police never exhibit racial bias, opposed to 31% of Republicans.
“This one is probably one of the largest partisan divides we saw in the poll,” Clark said.
Overall, the poll found high confidence in the state’s law enforcement: 61% of respondents said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Vermont’s police.
Asked about the Black Lives Matter movement, 66% of respondents said they supported it, while 25% said they opposed it.
This also broke down largely on party lines, Clark said. While 92% of Democrats said they supported Black Lives Matter, only 24% of Republicans did.
