Four in 10 now criticize US aid to Ukraine

(NEW YORK) — Public concerns that the United States is doing too much to support Ukraine in its war with Russia have notched up in an ABC News/Washington Post poll, even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the United States in search of additional aid.

Forty-one percent now say the United States is doing too much to support Ukraine, up from 33% in February and 14% in April 2022. Half, 50%, think the United States is doing the right amount or too little, down from 60% seven months ago and 73% in the war’s early months.

These trends have occurred as President Joe Biden, who was visited by Zelenskyy at the White House last week, seeks congressional support for an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine. Congress has committed approximately $110 billion in Ukraine assistance to date.

While attitudes on aid to Ukraine are highly polarized politically, the latest shift crosses party lines. Views that the United States is doing too much are up eight percentage points among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents since February, to 22%, and by essentially the same margin, a slight 7 points, among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, to 58%.

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This poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that the shift this year, instead, is chiefly ideological: Criticism of the level of support is up by 13 points since February among conservatives, with no statistically significant change among moderates or liberals.

Going back to April 2022, saying the United States is doing too much for Ukraine is up by 43 points among conservatives and 25 points among moderates, vs. 8 points among liberals.

There are other divisions. Criticism of the level of aid is dramatically higher among people who rate the economy negatively or say they’ve gotten worse off financially under Biden’s presidency; both are disproportionately conservative and Republican groups. It’s also 12 points higher among men than women and 10 points higher among people who don’t have a four-year college degree vs. college graduates. This likewise reflects ideological differences between those groups.

Zelenskyy, on a U.S. visit to shore up support, spoke at the United Nations last Tuesday and Wednesday and met Thursday with Biden, Congress members and Pentagon officials.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Sept. 15-20, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Partisan divisions are 25-25-42 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.