Nearly two out of every three Marylanders support restrictions state and local governments have put in place to stop the spread of coronavirus, according to a new poll by Gonzales Research & Media Services.
Fifteen percent of Marylanders said the restrictions “did not go far enough.” Combined with residents who supported the measures, 78 percent of Marylanders support some kind of limits on everyday life to stop the spread of COVID-19.
When asked specifically about stay-at-home orders that have limited people’s ability to go outside or travel, 64 percent of respondents said those measures “have been worth it.”
By comparison, 22 percent said restrictions “went too far” and that stay-at-home orders “did more harm than good.”
Baltimore City and the Washington Metro area–comprised of Montgomery, Prince George’s and Charles counties–overwhelmingly supported rules requiring people to only leave home for essential reasons. Seventy-eight percent of Baltimoreans and 72 percent of residents outside D.C. said the orders are “worth it.”
Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have been the two Maryland jurisdictions hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, consistently having the most cases in the state. Baltimore City has also had a significant number of cases–4,997 as of Tuesday morning, according to state data.
Support dipped below 60 percent in Western Maryland and the Baltimore suburbs, which includes Harford, Baltimore, Howard and Anne Arundel counties. But even in the region where the measures were the least popular, the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland, 50 percent of people said the measures were “worth it,” compared with 36 percent who said they “did more harm than good.”
Along party lines, only Republicans held a majority view that coronavirus-related restrictions went “too far.” Fifty-three percent of GOP voters said that was the case, while 39 percent said the measures were “about right” and 7 percent said they didn’t go “far enough.”
Democrats and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly backed the efforts, with 74 percent and 65 percent, respectively, saying the restrictions were “about right.” Only Democratic voters offered double-digit approval for the measures not going far enough, at 21 percent.
Gov. Larry Hogan has seen his approval ratings remain high during the pandemic, with 78 percent of Marylanders saying they approve of the job he’s doing.
Interestingly enough, Democrats gave higher praise than members of Hogan’s own party by 11 points. Eighty-two percent of Democrats gave Hogan high marks, while only 71 percent of Republicans did. Hogan earned the approval of 74 percent of unaffiliated voters, too.
On March 12, Hogan began rolling out restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, ordering school closures, limits on visits to prisons and hospitals and prohibitions on gatherings of more than 250 people.
By the end of the month, after a number of his restrictions had been heightened, Hogan ordered Marylanders to stay at home unless they are conducting essential trips to get food, medicine or to a job at an essential business.
On May 13, the governor lifted the state’s stay-at-home order, saying Maryland had seen declines or plateaus in coronavirus-related hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and deaths and could start reopening the state. But he ultimately left the final decision to the executives in local jurisdictions.
Many county executives took a slower approach, while Baltimore remains under a stay-at-home order as of this writing.
Some of those executives criticized Hogan’s decision in The Washington Post on Monday, saying the governor “abdicated” his duties or made local jurisdictions feel like they “were hung out to dry.”
Gonzales Media & Research Services conducted the poll from May 19-23 and interviewed 810 registered voters in Maryland over the phone. Of those called, 34 percent were reached on landlines and 66 percent were contacted by cellphone.
There’s a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.
