Most Republicans said Ukraine war a critical threat to US interests before DeSantis’s comments: Gallup poll

by Olafimihan Oshin - 03/15/23 3:07 PM ET

P-Vadim Ghirda
A man walks by an apartment block missing its central section after being hit by an airstrike, one year ago, in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Thursday, March 2, 2023. Nearly a year after towns and villages near Kyiv were retaken from Russian troops who had seized territory as they raced toward Kyiv at the start of their invasion of Ukraine, authorities are still exhuming the bodies of civilians hastily buried in makeshift graves. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Sixty-two percent of registered Republicans say that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war represents a critical threat to vital U.S. interests, according to a Gallup survey conducted before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made headlines earlier this week by asserting the opposite.

Another 29 percent of GOP respondents surveyed in the Gallup poll released Monday said the war is important but not a vital threat, and 9 percent said the conflict isn’t important to U.S. interests.

Fifty-eight percent of registered Democratic respondents and 51 percent of independents said that the ongoing war between the two countries is a critical threat to the U.S.’s interests, while 42 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of independents disagree.

DeSantis, who is widely seen as a leading contender for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination despite not yet entering the race, drew bipartisan pushback when he said on Monday that the Russia-Ukraine war is a “territorial dispute” that should not be considered one of America’s “vital national interests.”

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said in a Fox News questionnaire.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was among the many Republicans who rejected DeSantis’s position.

“Well, it’s not a territorial dispute in the sense that any more than it would be a territorial dispute if the United States decided that it wanted to invade Canada or take over the Bahamas,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt during an interview. “Just because someone claims something doesn’t mean it belongs to them.”

The Gallup survey was conducted from Feb. 1 to Feb. 23 among a total of 1,008 respondents. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Tags Gallup Poll Marco Rubio Marco Rubio Ron DeSantis Ron DeSantis Russia Russia-Ukraine war Ukraine