A vast majority of voters support President Biden’s ban on travel imposed on eight nations in southern Africa in response to the omicron variant of the coronavirus, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.
Seventy-one percent of registered voters in the Dec. 6-7 survey said they approve of Biden’s decision to restrict travelers from those countries, while 29 percent of respondents said they disapprove.
Seventy-eight percent of Republicans, 88 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of independents support Biden’s travel ban.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized the travel ban in an interview on Sunday, saying that “the travel bans aren’t going to work” to prevent the variant from spreading.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week that the U.S. will “hopefully” be able to lift its travel ban on African countries “in a quite reasonable period of time” as more information emerges regarding the omicron variant and its existence in the U.S.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 926 registered voters between Dec. 6 and 7. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
—Gabriela Schulte
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