The Biden administration’s mask mandate for planes, trains and other modes of transportation is no more. But a new Morning Consult/Politico survey shows most voters were on board with keeping it in place through early May — and about half say it’s still too soon to lift transit mask rules.
What you need to know
- Voters had a range of opinions on when mask requirements on public transportation should be lifted. About half of voters said it’s still too early, while 16% said it’s the right time and the same share said it’s overdue. About 1 in 10, meanwhile, said the requirement never should’ve existed in the first place.
- While the vast majority of Democrats (70%) said it’s too soon to lift such mandates, Republicans were divided. Roughly 3 in 10 said the rules should’ve been lifted already, but a quarter said it’s still too early and about 1 in 5 each said it’s either the right time or that the rules never should’ve been in place.
- The findings come as the future of mask mandates more broadly remains in question. Philadelphia became the first major U.S. city to reinstate indoor mask requirements last week, but a group of businesses and residents promptly sued, saying that local officials lack the authority to impose mask mandates.
- Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s new COVID-19 czar, said over the weekend that decisions about indoor mask rules should be made at the local level.
The April 15-17, 2022, survey was conducted among a representative sample of 2,005 registered voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.