Is COVID-19 death toll off? Democrats, Republicans agree — in opposite ways, poll says

Democrats and Republicans agree in a new poll that the COVID-19 death toll is different than reported, but diverge depending on party on if it’s under- or over-reported.

The majority of Democrats believe the death toll is higher than reported but most Republicans think it’s lower, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

According to the poll, 63% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans said the death toll was higher. Meanwhile, 40% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats said the number of deaths is less than what’s reported.

The poll also found that people who use Fox News as a primary news source are most likely to believe that the death toll is lower than reported.

Trust in government has also decreased the most in Texas, Florida, and Georgia, where governors re-opened states from coronavirus lockdowns. In California, New York and New Jersey, where governors refrained from opening their states quickly, the trust in the government was the highest.

Death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the death toll in seven states was almost 50% higher than usual for five weeks — 9,000 more deaths than were reported, according to The New York Times.

This Axios/Ipsos Poll was taken from May 1-4 by Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel and is based on a sample size of 1,012 adults age 18 and older. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 12:52 PM with the headline "Is COVID-19 death toll off? Democrats, Republicans agree — in opposite ways, poll says."