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Public opinion polling shows that vaccine hesitancy remains prevalent and diverse in Texas, even as the number of Texans vaccinated against COVID-19 slowly climbs. Perhaps the most important lesson after a year of extensive polling is that although there are well-documented partisan differences in the stated intention to get vaccinated among Texans, hesitancy is not only a Republican problem.

More Republicans than Democrats did express hesitancy or outright refusal to get a COVID vaccine, but 1 in 4 Texas Democrats (27%) also expressed reluctance in a recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. This is representative of a broader underlying problem: Skepticism about vaccines exists among a broad array of Texans.

In order to separate perceptions of vaccines as a medical procedure from partisan impulses that many Texans may harbor, we separated considerations of vaccines in general from the COVID vaccine in particular in our polling. We asked Texans whether vaccines are generally safe and, in a separate item, whether they are generally effective, before we asked their opinions on COVID-19 and the COVID vaccine.

Asked this way, only 56% of Texans expressed that vaccines are generally both safe and effective. So nearly half of Texans, 44%, would not commit to what has been an implicit or explicit feature of vaccine messaging: the assumption that most people trust vaccines, or at least dont experience much internal conflict in reaching the conclusion that the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risk, even if they harbor concerns about coronavirus vaccines.

Texans who view the coronavirus as less than a significant crisis, as indicated in previous polls, are unsurprisingly more likely to express hesitancy about getting vaccinated. Although Texas Republicans make up a large share of this group, it is by no means an exclusively Republican group. More than 1 in 4 voters who dont view the virus as a significant crisis identify as Democrats or political independents.

A relatively high degree of reluctance to obtain the vaccine among Black Americans has already been widely noted and continues to be aggressively addressed by Black opinion leaders and public health officials. Texas is no exception. African Americans, a largely Democratic group, do appear to be less inclined than white Texans to say that they will definitely get a COVID vaccine: 38% of white Texans say they will do so, but only 28% of Black Texans.

Education and age also matter. Texans without a college education, a group made up of similarly large shares of registered voters in both parties, are more reluctant than Texans with college or postgraduate degrees to say they will get vaccinated, as are younger Texans compared with older again, a group not uniformly Democratic or Republican.

Yes, partisan perceptions are informed and reinforced by messages sent by the parties leaders. Donald Trump spent a lot of his time politicizing the virus as an overblown threat, then did the same when he used a promised vaccine as a hail-Mary campaign prop. Gov. Greg Abbotts promotion of vaccines and their availability habitually includes subtweeting reminders like Vaccines are always voluntary, never forced or simply Always voluntary.

But while 52% of Republicans expressed skepticism about vaccinations in general, so too did nearly 1 in 3 Texas Democrats (30%).

Elected officials of both parties need to send clear signals about vaccination without partisan pandering. Relentless promotion of COVID-19 vaccination strategically targeted at skepticism wherever it resides will both address the public health crisis posed by the pandemic and spur economic recovery. And in doing so, it can overcome the false dichotomy between the two that partisan politics have propagated.

Resting the explanation for vaccine hesitancy on partisanship alone does Texas and the country a disservice. It reinforces an already costly, dangerous and deadly manifestation of partisan polarization. Achieving herd immunity requires addressing Republican skepticism toward the coronavirus and the vaccines, but it will also take turning collective public health attention toward the many other Texans who are less certain about vaccines than is often assumed.

Jim Henson is the director of the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin.

Joshua Blank is the research director of the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas at Austin.

A version of this op-ed appeared in the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express News, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Kaiser Health News, and the Waco Tribune-Herald.

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Vaccine Hesitancy in Texas is More Than a Republican Issue - UT News - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

Doug Deters| Florida Times-Union

First of all, as a school teacher, proud Republican and citizen of Florida I want to sincerely thank our political representatives in Tallahassee for having in-person learning all year! You stepped up and took the lead nationally when many states caved and some states/school districts are still not having in-person learning, which is disgraceful in my opinion.

With that said, please focus on getting us "back to normal" in regards to fighting COVID-19, continuing to get our citizens vaccinated at break-neck speed and keeping our economy open and growing.Please stop with the anti-union legislation and focus on what is most important during this critical time in history.

The Republican sponsored Senate Bill 1014 requires actions such as all teachers union membership applications to add phrases like "Right to Work State" in bold print. Newsflash my fellow Republicans: Teachers are professionals and we are already well aware what the laws are concerning our local unions.

Members would have to "renew" their membership yearly. Doing this entails filling out another application, contacting human resources to renew our payment deduction from our paychecks and essentially adds unnecessary paperwork for us and the school district. But we all know how much teachers love paperwork! This particular part of the bill makes as much sense as my wife and I renewing our marriage license yearly or having to renew our mortgage and car loan applications on a yearly basis. Newsflash to my fellow Republicans: Teachers are professionals and if we want to terminate our membership (which we are free to do any time) we are well aware how to take the appropriate steps.

Currently union membership is anonymous. SB 1014 will make named membership rosters available to the Public Employee Relations Commission. Don't worry readers, I don't know what that is either so let me translate. Currently principals do not have an active roster of who is a member and who is not a member at each school for privacy reasons. This helps ensure that members (or non-members) are not targeted.

I think my fellow Republicans will see many unintended consequences that will hurt the very people they want to "strengthen;" non-members. Let's think about this from a principals perspective. If a school administrator has to reduce his or her workforce (which happens quite often) and they have access to an active roster, they will likely target the non-members. Why? Non-members will not be able to "put up a fight" that an active member will be able to. Active members have the power of representation, which is a best advantage of being in the local union. A union member has someone that will fight for their rights and exhaust every avenue possible for a particular member to keep their job. Newsflash to my fellow Republicans: Your bill will likely hurt your base of voters.

So my fellow Republican leaders please stick to your strengths like battling COVID-19, getting people vaccinated, growing our economy and getting our state back to normal (I am sick of wearing a mask!!). The citizens of Florida need you focused on that more than ever!

Doug Deters is aClay County teacher and Duval County resident.

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Guest column: Republican leaders, focus on the economy not taking away teacher rights - The Florida Times-Union

Cars enter and leave a drive-thru voting site in Houston on Election Day in 2020. Texas Republican lawmakers are looking to ban the practice. David J. Phillip/AP hide caption

Cars enter and leave a drive-thru voting site in Houston on Election Day in 2020. Texas Republican lawmakers are looking to ban the practice.

Last year, when Isabel Longoria had to figure out how to safely hold an election during a pandemic, she saw the daunting task as an opportunity to do things differently.

"I just started dreaming," says Longoria, the elections administrator for Harris County in Texas. "And I just said, 'OK, let's start from the beginning not with what's possible first but what do voters want, and what's going to make it safer?' "

Harris County is home to Houston, and is one of the most populous and diverse areas of the country. Longoria says figuring out how to make polling locations less crowded was a main focus in the leadup to the 2020 elections, but she had always wanted to make voting easier as well.

One of her solutions was to increase the hours that voting centers were open. Some polling locations were open 24 hours at one point. Longoria says being open late at night gave shift workers including first responders more opportunities to vote. She says it also "spread out the number of people voting at any time" at a location.

Longoria also looked to local businesses, which were shifting to curbside options for their customers. She came up with drive-thru voting.

"Most folks who are fortunate to have a car use it to do all sorts of things banking, grocery shopping," she says. "What makes voting different? In my opinion, nothing."

Longoria and her team also tried to make mail voting easier by sending out ballot applications to all eligible voters, in case people didn't know they had that option.

But Republican leaders in Texas say all of these efforts were an overreach.

During a recent news conference, Gov. Greg Abbott argued that local election officials including those in Harris County were doing things not explicitly allowed by law. He also accused them of effectively opening the door to voter fraud.

"Whether it's the unauthorized expansion of mail-in ballots or the unauthorized expansion of drive-thru voting," Abbott says, "we must pass laws to prevent election officials from jeopardizing the election process."

In response to those local efforts, Republicans who control the state legislature filed a series of restrictive voting bills. Researchers last year said "Texas is the state with the most restrictive voting processes," but it's likely its laws will become stricter.

One measure that's been proposed would make distributing ballot applications to voters who didn't ask for one a felony. Others would outlaw drive thru-voting, and not allow polling locations to be open for more than 12 hours specifically beyond 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Another would require that election administrators put the same amount of voting machines in every one of their polling sites, no matter what.

That last one makes no sense to Chris Davis, the election administrator in Williamson County, a swing county in central Texas.

"If you have a smaller-size room in one part of your county that can only fit eight [voting machines]," he says, "well, by golly, eight is as many as you can have in an arena, or a lecture hall or high school gym."

Davis says the proposed changes to how local officials run elections are "incredibly short-sighted" and could lead to a misuse of public resources. And he also takes issue with proposals that would allow people to record video and sound in polling locations and ballot counting sites. He says that creates election security concerns.

But mostly Davis says he feels like lawmakers are accusing election administrators of doing bad things, which he says just isn't true.

"We contend that this isn't based in reality," he says. "It's a perception brought on by very, very visible candidates. And that perception has taken on a life of its own."

Committees in the Texas House and Senate began hearing two of the most notable Republican voting bills this week including House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7.

Texas Democrats have raised concerns that certain bills would make running elections harder because of the fear of prosecution looming over many possible mistakes.

Harris County's Longoria says the reaction from state leaders has been disappointing because she was successful in getting more people to vote while also limiting the potential spread of the coronavirus. Turnout in Harris County hit about a 30-year high in 2020.

"We were really proud," she says.

Longoria, as well as voting rights advocates in Texas, are also worried these voting bills could make it harder for marginalized communities to vote. Longoria says it's difficult to disregard the role of race in this effort as lawmakers zero in on things like drive-thru voting.

"One hundred twenty-seven thousand voters did drive-thru voting the majority of which were Black and brown voters," she says. "It's hard to not draw a line and say, 'Why are you going after this innovation?' "

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Texas Republicans Look To Curb Local Efforts To Expand Voting Access - NPR

By Tom Barton, Quad-City Times

Iowa Republicans continued a GOP-pressure campaign Thursday, casting a U.S. House review of a contested congressional election in Iowas 2nd District as a partisan power grab to pad Democrats narrow 219-211 majority in the House.

Those votes have been counted. Theyve been recounted. Theyve been canvassed by bipartisan (recount) boards, and certified by bipartisan groups of county and state officials, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said at a news conference Thursday. This election should stand.

Reynolds was joined by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, of Ottumwa, was seated as a new member of Congress in January, pending the outcome of a House committees review of Democrat Rita Harts election challenge. Hart, of Wheatland, lost to Miller-Meeks by just six votes out of nearly 400,000 cast after a bipartisan panel of state officials certified the election results in November following a recount in all 24 counties in southeast Iowas 2nd Congressional District.

Attorneys for Hart and Miller-Meeks submitted initial legal briefs to a House panel on Monday.

Miller-Meeks attorney, Alan Ostergren, broadly denied Harts claims and said the burden was on Hart to prove that a state-certified election should be overturned.

Hart argues that 22 ballots were legally cast in the district but not counted, because of errors by election workers. Had the 22 ballots been tallied, Hart argues she would have won by nine votes.

Republicans have criticized Hart for not challenging the election results in state court before asking Congress to resolve the issue.

They chose to bypass an impartial court system and go directly to a partisan process. And that is unconscionable, Reynolds said. The voters in Iowa have spoken. Weve gone through the process. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has won this election. Shes been seated by Congress, and its time to move on.

Harts campaign has argued she did not do so because Iowa statute does not offer enough time for a sufficient appeal process.

Pate pushed back on the assertion, stating both my office and the (Iowa) Supreme Court were ready, willing and able to facilitate a fair and thorough contest process.

Harts campaign argues the contest is the proper avenue for Congress to fulfill its duty and ensure that all Iowa voters have their voices heard and uphold voters constitutional right to have their legal ballots counted.

Reynolds and other Republicans, including Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, have seized on wording in Harts legal brief asking the House panel depart from Iowa law, and adopt counting rules that disenfranchise the smallest possible number of voters.

Rita Hart isnt just asking Congress to overturn a state-certified election. Shes asking Democrats to throw out Iowa law in deciding which votes to count, Reynolds said.

Harts campaign argues Iowa law prevented legally cast but wrongly rejected ballots from being included in the recount. Iowa Code states recount boards may consider only ballots considered by county canvass boards, even if made aware of legally cast ballots excluded from the initial count.

House committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., in a statement issued Wednesday, argues the House has a constitutional obligation to ensure the will of the people, through their votes, is reflected in the final composition of the House.

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I urge Republicans to end their coordinated public campaign filled with the same dangerous rhetoric and baseless accusations of stealing an election that contributed to a deadly riot in the Capitol and instead join us in a deliberate and dispassionate examination of the facts before the Committee, she said, stressing the House panel has not made any decision about the outcome of the contest.

A handful of moderate and vulnerable House Democrats have expressed reservations at the prospect of reversing a state-certified election and unseating Miller-Meeks, enough to potentially sink any floor vote.

Hart attorney Marc Elias, however, told reporters Tuesday he expects lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, will respect the will of Iowa voters if evidence shows Hart received more lawful votes.

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Republicans Reynolds, Pate blast U.S. House review of Iowa's 2nd District election - The Gazette

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Sam Webb says hes not against vaccines. His kids are up to date on their vaccines for school, and he got a flu shot a few years ago, the Weatherford truck driver said.

But he wont be getting a COVID-19 shot.

Webb, a former Army medic, is among the thousands of Republicans in Texas and across the country who say they do not trust COVID-19 vaccines and will refuse to get one even as public health experts and elected leaders say mass vaccinations are the key to a return to normalcy from the pandemic that has plagued the nation for a year.

At the beginning of the nations vaccine rollout, experts warned that people of color, particularly Black and brown people, could be skeptical or fearful about getting vaccinated. But over the past few months, white Republicans have emerged as the demographic group thats proven most consistently hesitant about COVID-19 vaccines.

In Texas, 61% of white Republicans, and 59% of all Republicans regardless of race, either said they are reluctant to get the vaccine or would refuse it outright, according to the February University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Thats not an insignificant portion of the states population over 52% of the states ballots in November were cast for former President Donald Trump.

Only 25% of Texas Democrats said they were hesitant or would refuse to get a COVID-19 shot, according to the poll.

Scientists and doctors stress that vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing the worst outcomes of COVID-19, including hospitalizations and deaths. No one has died because of the vaccines, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Some people may experience short-term side effects, but those effects quickly subside.

But the trend among Republicans is nationwide. A Civiqs poll updated in March indicated that white Republicans make up the largest demographic of people in the U.S. who remain vaccine hesitant with 53% saying they were either unsure about or not getting the vaccine.

Meanwhile, people of color have shown increased confidence in the vaccine over the past few months. In October 2020, 53% of Black Texans said they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine a percentage that dropped to 29% when asked last month, according to UT/Texas Tribune polls. By comparison, 43% of Texas Republicans said they would not get the vaccine in October, compared with 41% last month.

Most hesitancy among Republicans stems from a distrust of scientists and an unfounded concern about how new the vaccine is, said Timothy Callaghan, an assistant professor of health policy management at the Texas A&M School of Public Health.

What you do find is that over time conservatives have been more vaccine hesitant than liberals, which you can largely attribute to higher levels of distrust in the scientific establishment among conservatives, Callaghan said. However, the actions of certain political actors over the past few years have sort of intensified those beliefs within the party.

For Webb, he said he thinks its more about Republicans being distrustful of the government, and this has been pushed really hard by governmental authorities.

I'm not against vaccines, Webb said. Im against something that was rushed out so quickly.

Scientists and medical experts say no corners were cut for the COVID-19 vaccines. Built on years of research of coronaviruses, combined with global collaboration and large infusions of funding, COVID-19 vaccines were able to be developed quickly. Each of the three vaccines approved so far in the U.S. underwent clinical trials meticulously reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.

It wasn't just this brand new thing, said Dr. Philip Huang, Dallas Countys health and human services director. It was built on prior research and development, but it is a great tremendous scientific breakthrough.

Andrea Norman Harmon, a Springtown resident, said she distrusts the vaccine and is relying on her Christian faith.

I haven't even done any research on it, because in my mind, there's no way that you can 100% convince me that you can tell me what the effects are five years down the road if I take this vaccine today, said Harmon, a conservative. Research shows strong evidence that mRNA vaccines like the COVID-19 vaccines will not cause long-term harm.

Harmon said she does not trust government officials, regardless of party. Shell only get her high school-aged son vaccinated for COVID-19 if it is required for school, although her children are vaccinated for other diseases, she said.

If it's voluntary, and it stays voluntary, I will never take the vaccine, she said. If it comes down to I have to take it in order to keep my job I will be in heavy prayer over what I need to do.

That pervasive distrust across such a broad demographic is particularly concerning for public health experts with the goal of reaching herd immunity.

Anytime there are pockets or segments of the population that don't get vaccinated, it creates pockets of vulnerability, Huang said. We want everyone to take this public health measure.

Epidemiologists estimate to reach herd immunity, between 70% and 90% of the population needs to be vaccinated. Because the vaccines arent approved for people under 16, that means virtually all adults in Texas.

Its not only Texas, but we look at some other states where a large proportion of them are Republicans, said Jamboor K. Vishwanatha, founding director of Texas Center for Health Disparities. Its a brutal fact I mean it's going to affect all, because we will not be able to reach herd immunity. And with all of these new variants that may be coming, COVID may be with us for the long haul.

COVID doesnt discriminate between political affiliation, Vishwanatha added. [But] unfortunately, it got politicized from the beginning.

Elected leaders like former President Donald Trump have at times downplayed the severity of the virus while denigrating scientists who urged for increased caution. Trump, who received the vaccine, did so off camera and did not make a strong public push for Americans to get vaccinated.

Tasha Philpot, a University of Texas at Austin political science professor, said Republican Gov. Greg Abbotts messaging has been tepid in its encouragement of Texans getting vaccinated. Abbott received his first dose live on TV, but he also stresses in his public statements that the vaccines are always voluntary, a nod to members of his party who reject the vaccine.

Philpot said Abbotts decision to end most of the states COVID-19 restrictions earlier this month also sent a message to his party: The pandemic is over.

It's a signaling game, she said. I think if the signal had come from a credible source in their eyes, that we would be having a completely different discussion going on right now.

Abbott did not respond to request for comment.

Many Republican officials are attempting to simultaneously appeal to two different crowds with the Republican party nearly split down the middle on attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines, she said.

The last thing they want to do is upset their base, said Callaghan, the health policy management professor at Texas A&M. If Abbott came out, full-throated, saying everyone really needs to do this so we can put the pandemic into decline and get back to normal and get Texas back to the way it should be that might send a different signal to get more Republicans to vaccinate.

Dallas GOP chairperson Rodney Anderson stressed that the Republican Party isnt a monolith there are many who want the vaccine and there are a variety of reasons some might not want it. However, Anderson declined to share his personal views on the vaccine.

Anderson said most of his fellow party members that hes talked to cite concerns that the vaccine was quickly developed. He said he thinks those who believe in conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccines or virus are in the minority.

But Anderson said GOP leaders like Abbott and others have done an admirable job encouraging Texans of all political leanings to be vaccinated.

The communication at the state level between the governor, lieutenant governor of encouraging individuals [to] get vaccinated, get vaccinated, get vaccinated, has been appropriate and has been effective, he said.

When the vaccine first began rolling out, headlines and polls emerged indicating that people of color, especially Black and Hispanic people, were more hesitant about getting vaccinated than other demographics.

However, over time those numbers have changed. According to the UT/Texas Tribune polls, Black Texans hesitancy dropped by 24 percentage points from November to February.

Among Hispanic Texans, attitudes toward the vaccine diverge based on political affiliation. About half of Hispanic Republicans said they were either against or unsure about getting a vaccine, compared with 34% of Hispanic Democrats who said the same.

Still, a higher percentage of Hispanic Republicans in Texas who were polled said they would get vaccinated than white Republicans.

The UT/TT Poll did not receive a large enough sample of Black Republican respondents to derive meaningful results.

Some initial surveys indicated that there was vaccine hesitancy among people of color, but recent polls are showing that sentiment has largely decreased, Vishwanatha with the Texas Center for Health Disparities said, saying the problem is more about access.

The sentiment that Black and Hispanic people are less likely to want the vaccine is dangerous, Vishwanatha said, because of the disparities that persist. Black and Hispanic Texans already face disproportionately higher rates of dying or being hospitalized after being infected with COVID-19. And according to state data, they are being vaccinated at rates much lower than white people.

By kind of pushing this narrative that Black people don't want the vaccine anyway it's kind of blurring over the fact that there's this racial divide in terms of the dissemination of the vaccine and who gets who's actually getting access to it, Philpot said.

Also notable is the difference in the root cause of why people of color are hesitant to get vaccinated compared to white Republicans.

The huge difference between those two groups is this unique mistreatment of the Black community by the medical establishment, both historically and in modern times, that gives them additional pause about participating in a new vaccination program, Callaghan said. And that's simply just not a reason why Republicans are hesitant to vaccinate against COVID-19.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas white Republicans are the most hesitant of COVID-19 vaccine - The Texas Tribune