Trumped by Trump? Public Support for Mail Voting in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

How much is support for vote by mail (VBM) impacted by partisan considerations and personal considerations related to the COVID-19 pandemic? Using surveys of registered voters conducted in April and May 2020 designed to assess the support for various electoral reforms, we show that the overall support for expanding VBM in April 2020 falls sharply after just six weeks because Republicans became less worried about catching COVID-19, and unconcerned Republicans became far more opposed to VBM. These differences not only persisted, but actually increased even further between May and Election Day according to a survey done using a different methodology in November 2020. Public support for other reforms that were intended to make voting easier were largely unchanged, however. The pattern of opinion changes we document—perhaps a result of the intense partisan messaging that occurred during the time period of our study—highlights the importance of partisanship and personal considerations for public support for election reforms and also the widespread public support for most proposed reforms.