Survey finds 57% of Democrats don't want to reopen the economy for another six weeks or even longer

A nationwide survey found that a majority of Democrats don't want to reopen the economy for another six weeks or even longer.

The Network Science Institute of Northeastern University, the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy of Harvard University, and the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University polled 22,912 individuals across all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, from April 17-26.

The focus of the poll was to find out the opinions of Americans on how the COVID-19 pandemic is being handled as well as when the coronavirus recovery should happen.

The survey discovered that 57% of Democrats don't want to reopen the U.S. economy for six weeks or longer. Specifically, 22% want to reopen the economy in six to eight weeks, and 35% of Democrats don't want to reopen the economy until after eight weeks, which would keep "nonessential" businesses shuttered well into the summer.

Conversely, 16% of Republicans are in favor of keeping the economy closed for at least eight weeks, and 13% of Republicans want to reopen the economy in six to eight weeks. The median Republican wants to reopen the economy in two to four weeks, and the median Democrat wants to wait six to eight weeks.

The survey found that 93% of respondents did not want to reopen the economy immediately, and more than 80% of Americans supported closing nonessential businesses.

People from Wisconsin (25%), Michigan (24%), and Wyoming (22%) had the highest rates of dissatisfaction with their state governments being overbearing during the coronavirus pandemic and said the states were "overreacting to the outbreak."

The poll found that hospitals and doctors were the most trusted entity regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, with 96% trusting them "a lot" or "some." Participants in the study said scientists and researchers were the second-most reliable source for coronavirus information, with 93% trusting them "a lot" or "some," followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at 88%.

The survey found that 73% of Republicans said that the federal government was "reacting about right" in its response to the COVID-19 outbreak vs. 63% of Democrats who said the federal government was "not taking the outbreak seriously enough."