Politically Contested Beliefs: Support for Trump Better Predicts Having Inaccurate Beliefs About COVID-19 Than Conservative/Republican Political Identity

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented risk to society. Studies suggested that people's beliefs about COVID-19 are divided depending on partisan affiliations. Building on the belief gap hypothesis, this study adopts a nationally representative survey (N = 1,119) to examine whether political identity or support for Trump is more strongly related to having false beliefs about COVID-19. Results showed that support for Trump is a better predictor of having false beliefs about COVID-19 than conservative/Republican political identity. Support for Trump predicted having false beliefs, and such a tendency increased when they were more educated. Trust in scientific and news media institutions and conservative news use mediated the relationship between support for Trump and having false beliefs. Our findings bear implications on belief gap studies by introducing new mediators such as different dimensions of institutional trust and shed light on why people who support Trump are more susceptible to false claims about COVID-19.