Poll: Majority of Voters think Trump Deserves More Credit for Coronavirus Vaccines

A majority of U.S. voters think former President Donald Trump deserves more credit for the rollout of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, according to a Rasmussen poll report released on Monday.

When participants were asked, “Who deserves more credit for the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccination program, President Biden or former President Trump?” 51 percent of voters sided with Trump and 41 percent sided with Biden. 

The poll report noted that perception of the vaccination program is divided solidly along political lines, with unaffiliated voters split between the two. 

“Eighty percent of Republican voters think Trump deserves more credit for the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccination program, as do 21 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of voters not affiliated with either major party,” according to the report. “Seventy-one percent of Democrats believe Biden deserves more credit for the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccination program, but only 15 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of unaffiliated voters agree.”

When asked, “Do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of President Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic?” 81 percent of Democrats approved, as did 32 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of unaffiliated voters. A majority of Democratic voters — 57 percent — strongly approved of how Biden has handled the pandemic, but only 15 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of unaffiliated voters shared that view.

Former Vice President Mike Pence told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Friday that he thinks the current administration has not given enough credit to the Trump administration for “Operation Warp Speed,” which Trump announced in May 2020. The public-private partnership accelerated development of coronavirus vaccines, and Americans began getting vaccinated by December 2020.

At least a million shots were being administered every day by the time Trump and Pence left office. Pence said he does believe Americans generally see through Biden’s politicization of the pandemic.

“The fact that the Biden-Harris administration, that spent much of the campaign talking down a vaccine developed under the Trump-Pence administration, now has seen its way clear to ignore our administration’s efforts is disappointing but not surprising,” Pence said.

He continued:

I just honestly believe the Biden-Harris administration would do well to give credit where credit is due, first to the American people and second to efforts of a prior administration to demonstrate everything we’ve accomplished putting the health of the American people first in this pandemic is a tribute to the American people and American innovation and only in America could we be at a place where we are today where America is coming back and we’re seeing life returning to normal. 

Overall, 72 percent of Democrats said Biden is doing a better job than Trump of handling the pandemic, while 61 percent of GOP voters said Biden is doing a worse job than Trump. Unaffiliated voters were about evenly divided on the question.

The survey of 1,000 U.S. voters was conducted on July 13-14, 2021. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.