Polling analysis: Can vaccine hesitancy be reduced by a president's encouragement?

Many Americans still express reluctance about getting vaccinated for COVID-19, which could leave many unnecessarily vulnerable to the disease and hinder the country's return to normalcy. Many wonder whether presidents — especially former President Trump — could impact people's willingness to get vaccinated. CBS News ran an experiment to explore this question with respect to both Presidents Biden and Trump.

Telling people that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have been vaccinated and want others to do the same has an impact on some but not others. Those who were already resistant to being vaccinated are mostly unmoved by these messages, but there's a positive impact on people who were at least on the fence. In the aggregate, Americans are moving to greater vaccine acceptance, and our findings suggest that presidents can nudge some of them further along that path.