Even as all 50 states continue to move towards full reopening, Americans remain more cautious than their governors. Only 15% of survey respondents say that the country should be reopened for business right away, a 4 percentage point increase from the response to that question in early May. More than half of those polled (57%) are in favor of waiting at least a month or more before resuming business activity.
Partisan differences in attitudes towards reopening continue to grow, with 30% of Republicans now in favor of immediate reopening compared to 4% of Democrats. That represents an increase of over 20 percentage points for Republicans over the last month, compared to only a 2 percentage point increase for Democrats during the same period.
The residents of six states — Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island*, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maryland — are especially reluctant to reopen right away, with 10% or fewer of respondents in those states in favor of immediate reopening. At the other end of the spectrum, a quarter or more of the respondents in Idaho*, Montana*, Alaska* and Wyoming* say that the country should reopen immediately. The states with largest shifts in attitude towards immediate reopening are Alaska*, Wyoming*, South Dakota*, Oklahoma, Ohio, and New Mexico*, with an increase in support of 15 percentage points or more over the last month.
