70 percent of Americans view Russia as their enemy: survey

A whopping 70 percent of Americans view Russia as an enemy of the United States, a jump of roughly 30 percentage points from January, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.

A Pew Research Center survey found that 7 in 10 Americans polled consider Russia to be the enemy of the United States, with 24 percent seeing Russia as a competitor and 3 percent considering Moscow to be a partner.

In January, in contrast, only 41 percent of Americans surveyed considered Russia to be an enemy, with 49 percent considering the country to be a competitor and 7 percent seeing it as a partner.

The percentage of Americans polled who see Russia as an enemy in Pew’s latest survey is similar among Democrats and Republicans: 69 percent of Republican respondents and those leaning Republican said they consider Russia to be an enemy, as did 72 percent of Democrats and those leaning Democrat.

The survey also found that an overwhelming majority of Americans — 92 percent of respondents — hold unfavorable views towards Moscow, including 69 percent who have very unfavorable views and 23 percent who have somewhat unfavorable views.

In 2020, slightly fewer Americans held an unfavorable view of Russia, albeit still an overwhelming majority, at 83 percent. 

Pew also noticed a decreasing partisan gap among Americans over whether they saw Russia’s power and influence as a major threat to the U.S. The 2022 survey found that 61 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning Americans polled believed Moscow posed a major threat, in addition to 66 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents.

In comparison, in 2008, 51 percent of Republicans and 40 percent of Democrats said the same.

This comes in the midst of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, which has been widely condemned and deeply unpopular around the world. 

The Pew survey was conducted between March 21 and March 27 using a American Trends Panel of 3,581 adults.