Nearly Half of Americans Oppose Vaccine Mandates: Poll

The poll was conducted in March.

A registered nurse measures out a monkeypox vaccine shot at a vaccination site in Miami on Aug. 15, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Nearly half of Americans do not support requiring vaccines, according to a new poll.

Some 46 percent of respondents to the poll—conducted in March by a company called Public First for Politico—said they believe that facts on vaccines are still up for debate and that it is damaging to enforce their uptake.

That included 54 percent of respondents who voted for President Donald Trump and 36 percent of respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Another 39 percent said that the science on vaccines is clear and that it is damaging to question that.

That included 52 percent of Harris voters and three in 10 Trump voters.

The rest of the respondents chose neither option.

Politico released a summary of the poll results of 3,851 adults on April 14.

Public First did not respond to a request for the full results by publication time.

Respondents were also asked whether they would rather risk more cases of diseases labeled preventable by vaccines, such as measles, alongside support for the freedom of individuals to choose whether to receive vaccines. Some 47 percent of respondents, including 58 percent of Democrats, said the return of the diseases was not worth the risk, while 39 percent, including 49 percent of Republicans, or a plurality, said it was.

The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 1.6 percent.

A growing number of doctors, activists, and organizations have expressed opposition to vaccine mandates in recent years, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr and some of the country’s other top health officials. Exemptions to mandates, which are in place in virtually every state for school attendance, have been rising.

Administration officials said in January that a review of the policies of other countries found that peer nations had immunization rates similar to the United States, even without mandates. That helped prompt officials to downgrade recommendations for six vaccines, although that change was later blocked by a federal judge.

Other recent surveys have returned mixed results regarding mandates for vaccination.

About 80 percent of respondents to a poll conducted by John Zogby Strategies in February for groups that oppose mandates said Americans have the right to refuse vaccines, and 65.7 percent of respondents said parents have the right not to have their children vaccinated.

About three-quarters of respondents to a Reuters-Ipsos poll that month said healthy children should be required to be vaccinated to attend school, and 23 percent said unvaccinated children should be allowed in schools.