Americans’ support for Ukraine aid slips in new poll

A new poll shows that Americans’ support for sending weapons and economic assistance to Ukraine has dropped since the onset of Russia’s invasion of the country last year.

According to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 48 percent of Americans support sending weapons to Ukraine, a significant drop from May 2022, when about 60 percent supported sending Ukraine weapons. Twenty-nine percent in the new poll said they were opposed to sending weapons, while 22 percent said they did not support or oppose it.

When asked about sending government funds directly to Ukraine, Americans were about evenly split, according to the poll. Thirty-seven percent said they supported sending funds, 38 percent said they opposed it and 23 percent said they neither were in favor or opposed to it.

The U.S. has sent weapons and economic aid to Ukraine throughout the war, with President Biden recently committing to sending 31 Abrams tanks to the country.

Support for sending Ukraine aid has diminished among House Republicans, with some hesitant to sign off on more. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) previously said that a GOP majority would not send a “blank check” to Ukraine.

Only 19 percent of Americans in the survey released Wednesday said that they have a “great deal of confidence” in Biden to address the war in Ukraine, while 37 percent reported some confidence in the president and 43 percent said they hardly had any. Along party lines, 40 percent of Democrats said they had a “great deal of confidence” in Biden’s handling, 50 percent reported some confidence in Biden and just 9 percent have hardly any.

More than three-quarters of Republicans reported that they hardly had any confidence in Biden to handle Ukraine.

In addition, 63 percent of respondents support imposing economic sanctions on Russia and 55 percent support accepting Ukrainian refugees into the U.S., both of which were a downtick from May 2022.

The Ukraine-Russia war is coming up on its first anniversary. Biden is preparing to travel to Poland later this month to mark the one-year milestone of the war. He is expected to give remarks about how the United States “rallied” support for Ukraine worldwide, and how the U.S. will “continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”