Americans’ Attitudes Towards Asians in the Trump COVID Era

Abstract

In this paper we explore the relationship between the COVID pandemic and Americans’ attitudes toward Asians. We suggest that if (1) COVID originated in China, (2) the source of COVID was regularly discussed in the news media and by political figures such as President Donald Trump, and (3) there was considerable criticism levelled at China for its handling of the COVID pandemic, it is plausible that how Americans think about Asians would be related to the intensity of both the pandemic itself and news coverage of the pandemic. We use data from the Nationscape surveys, comprised of approximately 6300 respondents per week representing each of the 50 weeks from July 2019 to July 2020 (N = 318,770). We merge with the Nationscape surveys data on weekly COVID coverage for nine national news sources, as well as state-week data on cumulative and new COVID deaths and cases. We find that COVID news coverage and new COVID deaths have a significant effect in lowering Asian favorability. Moreover, we find that the effect of COVID news coverage on Asian favorability is magnified among Trump supporters, while the effect of COVID news coverage and COVID deaths vary across different racial groups. Finally, we find that there is a general COVID effect that extends to evaluations of Asians, Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, though the effect of COVID news coverage is considerably stronger for evaluations of Asians than of any of the other racial/ethnic groups.