Rasmussen Poll: 72% of Likely Voters Are Confident U.S. Health System Can Handle the CoronaVirus

35% think the media & some politicians are playing it up to hurt President Trump

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — The latest Rasmussen Reports National Survey finds that 46% of all Likely U.S. Voters rate the Federal Government’s response to the CoronaVirus as good or excellent, while 30% say it’s poor. Among those who think the threat is being played up for political reasons, 79% give the government positive marks for its actions.

Americans are growing more concerned about the CoronaVirus outbreak, but by a 47% to 35% margin, they also believe that the media tends to make the outbreak of diseases like coronavirus sound worse than they really are.

By comparison, 40% of Americans gave the the Obama Administration's government response to Ebola good or excellent marks in October 2014 after the first case was diagnosed in the country. Less than three weeks later, that number had fallen to 31%.

According to a late January Rasmussen Poll, 72% of all Americans felt that the U.S. Public Health System will be able to handle the problem. 

A closer look at the latest findings shows that while 70% of Republicans give the government positive marks for its response to date, just 31% of Democrats and 35% of Independent Voters agree.

But 60% of Republicans believe that the media and some politicians are playing up the threat of CoronaVirus to hurt President Trump.

The older the voter, the more positive they are about the federal government’s response to the CoronaVirus – and the more likely they are to suspect there’s an anti-Trump agenda at work.

Among all voters:

• 49% see the virus as a major health threat to the country
• 35% think the media and some politicians are playing it up to hurt President Trump
• 11% say neither is the case

Like most every other issue in America today, views of the CoronaVirus and the government's response to it are heavily colored by politics.

• Democrats are most likely to see the new virus as a threat and criticize the government’s response
• Republicans see an anti-Trump agenda at work
• 60% of Republicans see the Coronavirus scare as tool to get trump

For 67% of Democrats and 50% of Independent Voters, the CoronaVirus is a major health threat to the United States. Just 23% of those who consider the CoronaVirus a major health threat to the country rate the government’s response so far as good or excellent.

• 49% of voters agree with the Federal Reserve Board’s decision to cut interest rates in response to the potential economic threat of the CoronaVirus
• Only 24% disagree with the Fed’s action
• 27%) are undecided
• 59% of Republicans are supportive of the interest rate cut
• As are 44% of Democrats
• 43% of independents

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted March 3-4, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. See methodology. For additional information from this survey, and to see survey question wording, click here.