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Partisanship and public opinion of COVID-19: does emphasizing Trump and his administration’s response to the pandemic affect public opinion about the coronavirus?

Partisanship and public opinion of COVID-19: does emphasizing Trump and his administration’s response to the pandemic affect public opinion about the coronavirus?
Partisanship and public opinion of COVID-19: does emphasizing Trump and his administration’s response to the pandemic affect public opinion about the coronavirus?
Does emphasizing the pandemic as a partisan issue polarize factual beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions concerning the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, we conducted a preregistered survey experiment with a “questions as treatment” design in late March 2020 with 1587 U.S. respondents recruited via Prime Panel. Respondents were randomly assigned to answer several questions about then-president Donald J. Trump and the coronavirus (including receiving an information cue by evaluating one of Trump’s tweets) either at the beginning of the survey (treated condition) or at the end of the survey (control condition). Receiving these questions at the beginning of the survey had no direct effect on COVID-19 factual beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions.
1745-7289
145-154
Spälti, Anna Katharina
74cc3501-f2ae-4c12-8996-8f9ab34a6f3e
Lyons, Benjamin
562d35bb-6be0-4e08-8663-0cc28bfa0063
Mérola, Vittorio
778f5fa1-aef4-4c90-a437-92a05e76fed4
Reifler, Jason
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Stedtnitz, Christine
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Stoeckel, Florian
ca82e601-5b0f-4f51-9b2d-46a1693e1f25
Szewach, Paula
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Spälti, Anna Katharina
74cc3501-f2ae-4c12-8996-8f9ab34a6f3e
Lyons, Benjamin
562d35bb-6be0-4e08-8663-0cc28bfa0063
Mérola, Vittorio
778f5fa1-aef4-4c90-a437-92a05e76fed4
Reifler, Jason
426301a1-f90b-470d-a076-04a9d716c491
Stedtnitz, Christine
4ebfda30-aa1d-443e-81f8-6b3c75e60b7b
Stoeckel, Florian
ca82e601-5b0f-4f51-9b2d-46a1693e1f25
Szewach, Paula
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Spälti, Anna Katharina, Lyons, Benjamin, Mérola, Vittorio, Reifler, Jason, Stedtnitz, Christine, Stoeckel, Florian and Szewach, Paula (2021) Partisanship and public opinion of COVID-19: does emphasizing Trump and his administration’s response to the pandemic affect public opinion about the coronavirus? Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 31 (Suppl. 1), 145-154. (doi:10.1080/17457289.2021.1924749).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Does emphasizing the pandemic as a partisan issue polarize factual beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions concerning the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, we conducted a preregistered survey experiment with a “questions as treatment” design in late March 2020 with 1587 U.S. respondents recruited via Prime Panel. Respondents were randomly assigned to answer several questions about then-president Donald J. Trump and the coronavirus (including receiving an information cue by evaluating one of Trump’s tweets) either at the beginning of the survey (treated condition) or at the end of the survey (control condition). Receiving these questions at the beginning of the survey had no direct effect on COVID-19 factual beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions.

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Accepted/In Press date: 21 March 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 15 June 2021

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 497449
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/497449
ISSN: 1745-7289
PURE UUID: b1590ad6-b4a0-4cf2-b8bc-732b2f17ea12
ORCID for Jason Reifler: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1116-7346

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Date deposited: 23 Jan 2025 17:30
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:43

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Contributors

Author: Anna Katharina Spälti
Author: Benjamin Lyons
Author: Vittorio Mérola
Author: Jason Reifler ORCID iD
Author: Christine Stedtnitz
Author: Florian Stoeckel
Author: Paula Szewach

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