11 percent of unvaccinated Americans blame Trump for the new COVID-19 wave, poll finds

Donald Trump
(Image credit: Andy Jacobsohn/AFP/Getty Images)

Americans overwhelming blame the unvaccinated for the upsurge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as the Delta variant sweeps across the U.S., an Axios/Ipsos poll released Tuesday morning found. Overall, 58 percent of respondents blamed unvaccinated adults for the new COVID-19 wave, 32 percent blamed people from other countries traveling to the U.S., and 28 percent blamed former President Donald Trump.

But Axios and Ipsos also split the results apart by vaccinated and unvaccinated respondents, and things got a little strange. Nearly 80 percent of vaccinated respondents blamed the unvaccinated for the new COVID-19 wave, but so did 10 percent of unvaccinated respondents. Trump was fingered by 36 percent of vaccinated respondents but also by 11 percent of unvaccinated adults. The unvaccinated were more prone to blame foreign visitors (37 percent), the mainstream media (27 percent), Americans traveling abroad (23 percent), and President Biden (21 percent). A third of vaccinated adults blamed conservative media.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.