A new poll found that 42 percent of Republicans support the United States providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine.
The Axios/Ipsos Two Americas Index found that Republican support on aiding Ukraine is lower than what all American adults support. Three in five Americans, or 59 percent, say that they support the U.S. providing weapons and sending financial support to Ukraine in its year-long conflict with Russia, and 79 percent of Democrats said that they support this kind of aid.
Among independents, 60 percent of them support aiding Ukraine financially and by sending weapons.
Republican leaders are divided on whether the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) responded to a questionnaire sent by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson this week, saying that aiding Ukraine is not a “vital interest” for the United States, and that the war was a “territorial dispute.”
Trump also responded to the questionnaire and said that Ukraine was not a “vital interest” for the U.S.
Senate Republicans distanced themselves from DeSantis’s Ukraine stance this week, with many of them saying that they disagreed with what he had to say about U.S.’s interest in Ukraine. Other Republicans, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and former South Carolina Gov. and presidential candidate Nikki Haley, have also pushed back on DeSantis’s comments.
The poll also found that 54 percent of Americans said that the U.S. focus on national defense and homeland security made America safer over the last 20 years. Fifty-one percent of Democrats agreed with that statement, and 65 percent of Republicans agreed.
About two-thirds of Americans also said that they opposed any reduction of spending to the U.S. military and national defense.
Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the poll found that 36 percent of Americans agreed that it was right for the U.S. to invade the country. Republicans were more likely to support that sentiment, with 58 percent of them saying it was the right thing to do, and 26 percent of Democrats reporting the same thing.