As the daily amount of COVID-19 cases steadily reaches a peak, many states across the US are starting to reopen. Texas governor Greg Abbott allowed malls, restaurants, theaters, and other public spaces to open at 25%-50% capacity earlier this month, and in Nevada, casinos in the Las Vegas strip plan to reopen as soon as early June. Despite this long-awaited reopening process, many governors, federal officials, and citizens are wary of officials being too optimistic in the reopening process, whereas others say it is long overdue.

The public opinion on reopening, like many other hot-button issues, has an obvious partisan divide. A Pew Research Center study released in March finds that 12% of Democrats believe President Trump is doing a good job handling the pandemic, whereas 82% of Republicans hold the same belief. Although the coronavirus pandemic calls for national unity, it seems as if the political divide in the United States seems wider than ever.

Part of the massive political divide regarding the pandemic handling is in the reopening process. Self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents are typically more opposed to reopening of public spaces, whereas self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents are much more likely to support the reopening of these spaces. This divide is on both federal and state levels, with President Trump publicly criticizing the slow reopening plans of many Democrat-controlled “blue” states, whereas many Democrat officials, namely Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, hold hasty reopening plans to strict scrutiny.

The main reason for this partisan split is the difference in viewpoints regarding the pandemic. Democrats like Nancy Pelosi emphasize the public health portion of the crisis, noting that the virus’s impact on immuno-compromised and elderly individuals trumps the economic turmoil caused by diminishing consumer spending during the outbreak. Because reopening plans are almost exclusively for economic relief, Democrats are more likely to oppose and scrutinize reopening plans.

Republicans, however, mainly underscore the economic turmoil because of the lack of global spending through the coronavirus. US consumer spending has dropped 13.6%, a record amount, in the face of the virus. Republicans often believe that more individuals would be negatively affected by the coronavirus than the virus itself. Because, as mentioned earlier, the reopening is strictly economic, Republicans are often more eager and supporting of the optimistic stipulations of reopening plans.

Despite the universal impact of the coronavirus, politics intrudes in most if not all aspects of life. Americans are more politically divided than ever because of increasing party polarization, and the coronavirus is no exception. The reopening plan for the United States, despite its optimistic nature, is just as divisive as other hot-button issues today, and even though the coronavirus is an unexpected change, the everyday battles of politics and democracy are just a fact of life.