A new survey offers some perspective on the attitudes of North Texans with regard to the coronavirus pandemic.
The survey, The Coronavirus Survey of North Texas, was released by Texas 2036, a nonprofit bi-partisan organization founded by Tom Luce, on Monday afternoon.
The group surveyed 1,000 North Texans from 11 counties and learned the public is divided on whether the economy or public health is more important.
“We’re facing some real health challenges and some real economic challenges, and we have got to all pull together,” said Luce.
Those more focused on the economy tend to think the worst is behind us, the governments lifted restrictions too slowly and they tend to be self-identified as Republicans, white and male.
The group more focused on health believe the worst is yet to come, the governments lifted restrictions too quickly and tend to be self-identified Democrats, female, younger, independent, and Black.
“I think we all individually have economic and health concerns, and the question is some people have weighted more towards health, some weighted more towards economic. But in the real world, we have to address both concerns, to get our neighbor’s job back, or to get the economy rolling, because you know businesses sell to Republicans, Democrats and Independents, and they sell to people who have health concerns as their priority and others that have economic concerns,” added Luce.
By almost a 3-1 margin over Democrats, self-identified Republicans think the worst is behind us. Independents fall in the middle
By a more than 2-1 margin, self-identified Democrats think the worst is yet to come, with Independents much closer to Democrats than Republicans.
As to re-opening, Democrats, by a wide margin, think restrictions are being lifted too early. Here again, Independents are in the middle.
“I took that you really can bridge all these gaps with a common message and it’s really heartening in many senses in that masks are important,” he added.
This survey had questions on many subjects related to the 2019 novel coronavirus. You can see the presentation, questions asked and methodology below. If you have any trouble viewing the survey below, click this link to open it in a new window.
