CSSC Brief · May 2022
Why did COVID-19 split along party lines so fast?
Based on A Partisan Pandemic: How COVID-19 Was Primed for Polarization, published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
The short version
Trust in public health institutions was the biggest driver of partisan divides over COVID-19, and that trust became increasingly tied to party, especially after the 2020 election.
What we did
During the COVID-19 pandemic, what initially appeared to be a nonpartisan public health issue quickly morphed into a highly polarized one. Americans’ opinions split along party lines in just a few months, affecting their attitudes, behaviors, and support for various preventative measures and policies.
Why did responses toward COVID-19 become so politically divided so quickly—or at all? We looked at past scientific controversies to find some answers.
Here’s what we know: three main factors usually drive polarization—political elites influencing opinions, trust in public health institutions, and differences in information sources. So, we analyzed data from the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index, which surveyed around 1,000 people almost every week from March 2020 to September 2021, to see how expectations from each factor held up in explaining partisan reactions to COVID-19.
What we found
- Trust in public health institutions explained the most about partisan reactions to COVID-19.
- Over time, Republicans grew less trusting of these institutions and Democrats grew more trusting, a split that sharpened after the 2020 election.
Why it matters
This trend suggests that both elite polarization and general trust in science across political groups are at play. As those factors become more and more tangled together, they might create a vicious cycle where (political) elite resistance to science-based policies has long-term impacts. Breaking this cycle could be crucial for helping us figure out better ways to communicate science during crises, and to reduce political divides and promote unified, evidence-based responses.
Cite the paper
Hegland, A., Zhang, A. L., Zichettella, B., & Pasek, J. (2022). A partisan pandemic: How COVID-19 was primed for polarization. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 700(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221083686