Poll: Majority say US didn’t do enough to quickly evacuate Americans, Afghan allies

A majority of voters say the U.S. didn’t do enough to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.

Fifty-seven percent of registered voters in the Aug. 17-18 survey said the U.S. did not do enough to quickly evacuate Americans and Afghan allies before the Taliban swept the country, while 43 percent said the U.S. did do enough.

Nearly three quarters of surveyed Republicans and four in 10 Democratic voters — along with 56 percent of Independents — said the U.S. did not do enough before the Taliban took over. The Taliban moved into the capital city of Kabul on Sunday.

Overall, 53 percent of voters said they disapprove of how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was carried out by the Biden administration, while 47 percent said they approve.

Seventy percent of Democrats, 52 percent of Independents and just 19 percent of Republicans said they approve of the way the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was carried out.

Sixty-four percent of voters said they generally support the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan, down from 73 percent in a July poll. By contrast, 36 percent said they disapprove.

“A majority of voters have supported pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan for some time now, and that number today is at 64 percent,” Dritan Nesho, chief pollster and CEO of HarrisX, told Hill.TV.

“However, the polling is also clear that the rationale for ending the U.S.’s longest military engagement is not a veneer for a hasty and disorganized pullout that is seen as damaging the credibility of both the United States and the administration. A majority of voters from the get-go disapprove of how the pullout was managed and 57 percent do not think the Biden administration did enough to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from Afghanistan before the Taliban took over. These numbers raise questions of competency for the administration, especially since foreign policy is a perceived strength for this team,” Nesho added.

The Biden administration has faced criticism over the withdrawal, amid chaotic scenes at Kabul’s airport earlier this week as thousands of Afghan allies and Americans attempted to get on flights out of the country. A U.S. official said Thursday that the United States has evacuated 7,000 people from the country since Saturday.

The most recent Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 974 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 3.14 percentage points.

—Gabriela Schulte