Keywords: The prime minister, performance of the government, political public opinion, public poll, political survey, Thailand

Purpose/Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence Thai public political opinion across multiple facets regarding Thai government before (August 2012–February 2013) and after the 2014 coup d'état (August 2019–February 2020).
Context/Background: Thailand has undergone numerous coups d'état, including the 2014 coup, which might have significantly influenced public political opinions and the associated sociodemographic characteristics. Examining these alterations yields essential insights into the changing dynamics of public political sentiment in Thailand.
Methods and Data: This repeated cross-sectional study mainly employed secondary monthly individual-level data from Suan Dusit Poll's national surveys of the Thai political index, which captures Thai citizens' opinions and perspectives regarding the performance of the Thai government from 2011 to 2013 and 2019 to 2020. The study comprised a total sample size of 61,263 Thais, including 43,988 participants before the coup (August 2012–February 2013) and 17,275 participants after the coup (August 2019–February 2020).
Analysis: We utilized descriptive statistics (frequency, means, and standard deviation) to delineate participant characteristics and employed multivariate multiple linear regression models to examine regional and individual factors associated with public political sentiment scores ranging from 0 to 10 in each topics, including the performance of the Prime Minister, the performance of the government, the administration of the country in accordance with the announced policies, the performance of the opposition party, and the government’s overall approach to addressing various issues before and after the coup d'état in Thailand. We accounted for certain confounding variables, like the 2012 flood calamity and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We employed the STATA 18 software for statistical analysis. Considering a significance level of 0.05.
Main Findings/Results: This study found similar and different factors associated with political opinion scores prior to and following the 2014 coup. Thai citizens residing in Northern Thailand exhibited a marked preference for the performance of the prime minister and the government prior to the coup, whereas people from Northeastern Thailand demonstrated a notable preference for their performance after the coup. Notably, following the coup, Thai individuals over the age of 50 in 2019-2020 rated the Prime Minister and the government's performance more favorably, whereas Thai individuals aged 20 or younger during the same period exhibited a positive correlation with the performance of the opposition party. It is noteworthy that Thai individuals possess distinct perspectives regarding the flood disaster of 2012 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The former emphasizes the poor performance of the prime minister and the government, whereas the latter addresses the overall deficiencies in Thai politics.
Conclusion/Implications: This study highlights the changing nature of Thai public political sentiment, revealing significant sociodemographic and regional differences before and after the 2014 coup. Variations by region and age, as well as national crises like the 2012 flood and the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate how local contexts and major events affected perceptions of government and opposition performance.