The US has passed a new milestone in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic — more people have received the first dose of the vaccine (27 million and counting) than the total number of test-positive coronavirus cases (26 million and counting). The goal is herd immunity or the level of vaccination that shuts down the coronavirus’s ability to circulate in the population.

To achieve herd immunity, experts say that anywhere from 70% to 90% of the population must be vaccinated, equal to at least 230 million Americans. However, at just 32.7 million vaccines distributed in total, and just 6.4 …

Upon taking office, President Joe Biden faces a nation divided. His approval ratings, the consequence of a 70-point partisan divide, serve as a reminder that the polarization of the Trump era is poised to spill over into the next.

However, this partisan disagreement has not completely chipped away at Biden’s early honeymoon period. His post-inauguration approval ratings sit at 55% according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, putting him approximately on par with how Americans viewed former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton when they too were just starting out.

President Donald Trump, by contrast, was met with a skeptical public from…

An event like the storming of the U.S. Capitol does not occur in a vacuum. The underlying forces and belief systems that culminated in a mob descending on the halls of Congress have been building for some time.

The fault lines in the nation’s understanding of what is fact and what is fiction have long been apparent. The 2020 election, which both parties saw as a “battle for the soul of the nation,” further exacerbated these rifts.

While a substantial number of Americans rejected the reality of President-elect Joe Biden’s win soon after the election was called in his favor…

A schism in Americans’ understanding of the threat that the coronavirus pandemic represents appeared early on in the crisis and has lingered throughout the year. This divide is deeply engrained across partisan lines, with Democrats consistently indicating the highest levels of concern about the pandemic.

By contrast, less than half of Republicans say they are “extremely or very” concerned about the virus. There was a brief period in early April when around 57% of Republicans indicated more elevated levels of concern about the pandemic, but these numbers soon leveled off through the spring and on into the fall.

As these…

2020 was the year that the word “unprecedented” first became ubiquitous, and then overused, as the nation struggled to keep pace with the rapidly evolving events of the day. From a global pandemic, to economic free fall, to widespread protest against racial inequality, the improbable and unforeseen became our lived reality in 2020.

Ipsos tracked the evolution of trends in public opinion around these issues as they unfolded. To celebrate the close of 2020, we summed up the year in charts.

1. Concern about the coronavirus hinges on partisan affiliation. From the start of the pandemic, Democrats were much more…

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, FOX News ratings are significantly down, while sites promoted by President Trump, like Newsmax or OANN, are getting a boost.

These trends are echoed in the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index, which tracks where Americans are primarily sourcing their news. From the start of the pandemic to the weeks after the election, the number of Americans who identify FOX as their main source of news fell by six points.

This isn’t the only change in news consumption seen from March to the present. Americans began turning to social media and other digital sources in…

President Trump ran in 2016 on a campaign promise to “Make America Great Again.” Now, four years later, just how many Americans believe the United States is “great?”

Spoiler — just a minority, and fewer now than before. From 2017 to today, the number of Americans who rank the nation as an 8 to 10 on a 10-point scale of greatness has fallen from 51% to 37%.

Democrats and Independents drove the decline. The number of Democrats who see the country as “great” was more than halved from 2017 to 2020, while the number of Independents feeling this way dropped…

Americans are becoming more open to taking a future vaccine as fears about the virus tick upwards. Some signs of reluctance still linger, however. While the majority of Americans are willing to take a vaccine that has been vetted by pharmaceutical companies, approved by public health officials or has been on the market for a few months, just under half are willing to take a first-generation version.

But even just shy of half marks an improvement from September through early November, when significant doubts about a first-generation versions emerged as a prospective vaccine became the subject of political disputes. Following…