Congressional Democrats Are All Vaccinated. Their Republican Colleagues, Not So Much – By Hannah Levintona (Mother Jones) / May 15 2021
Only 95 of the 212 Republican House members confirmed having gotten the shot.
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The stark divide on COVID vaccinations that has embroiled the country is also apparent on Capitol Hill, where 100 percent of Democrats in the House and Senate have said they are vaccinated, while dozens of their Republican colleagues either haven’t gotten a jab or refuse to talk about it.
CNN conducted a survey of Congress members this month to ascertain their vaccine status. All 219 House Democrats and all 50 Democrats in the Senate told the network that they are vaccinated. But in the House, just 95 of 212 Republican House members said they were vaccinated. In the Senate, 46 of 50 Republican senators said they were vaccinated, with two more reporting that they were not and the final two refusing to answer the question.
It’s likely that congressional Republican hesitancy to get or discuss the COVID vaccine is tied to the high numbers of anti-vaccine constituents in their districts. A number of polls have shown that, as a group, Republicans are the most likely to say they won’t get a vaccine. A CNN poll last month found that 44 percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t get a vaccine, compared to 28 percent of independents and 8 percent of Democrats. In a March poll of Texans, 59 percent of Republicans said they were either reluctant or opposed to the vaccines, compared to 29 percent of Democrats.
