A new batch of polls ahead of Biden’s speech confirms the evolution of what was once a very bipartisan issue. A
Washington Post-ABC News poll, for instance, shows half of Republicans now say we’re doing “too much” for Ukraine.
More strikingly, an NBC News poll last week showed 63 percent of Republicans opposed “providing more funding and weapons to Ukraine,” while 32 percent were in support.
Support for Ukraine’s cause overall remains overwhelmingly
bipartisan. But Republicans are more skeptical that Ukraine can emerge victorious. A Fox News poll released last week showed Democrats thought Ukraine was winning the war by a 2-to-1 margin, 61 percent to 26 percent. But
Republicans were split, with 43 percent saying Russia was winning and 42 percent saying Ukraine was winning. It’s the
second poll since the 2022
election that suggests Republicans are more likely than Democrats to view Russia as winning the war.
Similarly, a December poll from Fox News showed 34 percent of Democrats thought Ukraine was “very likely” to survive the invasion and remain a free country, but just
15 percent of Republicans agreed.
A Marquette University poll this month showed 37 percent of Democrats thought what happens with the war matters a “great deal” to life in the United States, compared to
24 percent of Republicans. And while a Pew Research Center poll at the start of the war showed half of Republicans regarded the invasion as a “major threat” to U.S. interests, just
29 percent now say that’s the case. (Democrats’ belief that Russia is a “major threat” in that time has declined only slightly, from half to 43 percent.)
A new
Gallup poll gave people a binary choice between supporting Ukraine’s efforts to reclaim its territory, and ending the war quickly — even if it meant Russiawas allowed to keep conquered territory. A slight majority of Republicans picked the former, but 41 percent were willing to countenance Russia keeping the territory in the name of ending the war. That’s compared to just 16 percent of Democrats who believed the same.
And if you layer on top of that the financial question, Republicans appear even more open to Russia keeping some territory. A November poll for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs posed a somewhat similar dilemma: between supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes” even if it means higher domestic gas and food prices, or negotiating a settlement “even if that means that Ukraine will lose some territory.”
Republicans had been split on the same question in the summer of 2022, but by November they
chose the quicker settlement by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, 63-33. Democrats were essentially flipped, siding 61-36 in favor of “as long as it takes.”
