Recent polling suggests that Democrats’ support for COVID-19 lockdowns may not be purely about love of “science” after all.
The chart: A chart of the results of a Morning Consult survey released last week shows that Americans with graduate degrees or six-figure-plus incomes generally saw their personal and professional status improve in 2020 — even as other Americans suffered.
- Forbes editor Avik Roy highlighted the chart on Twitter on Friday, saying, “Do you wonder why the media & economic elites champion #COVID19 lockdowns?”
- “Uncomfortably true,” commented The New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks.
According to the poll, the highly educated and the highly paid — and to a lesser extent, city-dwellers — were much more likely than not to say their personal lives, jobs, finances and health got better during the plague year.
- All Americans, meanwhile, reported net declines across the board, and things were worst among people without college degree or who make $50,000 or less.
The takeaway: Analyst Robert Griffin shared a visualization of contemporaneous polling by his Democracy Fund to push back on the idea that only rich people support lockdowns.
But, at a time when the Democrats are increasingly the party of urban professionals, the Morning Consult chart suggests self-interest may be a factor in their disproportionate support for lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions.
- As the pollster put it, “stark differences in the current state of consumers’ well-being and attitudes run deeper than political lines.”
So much for the media narrative that Democrats just follow the science?