A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found a large bipartisan majority of the country supports increased sanctions against Russia and increased humanitarian support for Ukrainians. Scott Clements, director of polling at The Washington Post, joins Cheddar News to discuss the study. 

Cheddar's News Wrap

New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Back Sanctions on Russia

quick question for you. Do you think the United States is doing too much or not enough to support Ukraine in its war with Russia? Well, a recent Washington post abc News poll finds a large bipartisan majority of the country actually supports increased sanctions against Russia and increase humanitarian support for Ukrainians. Join me now to discuss is scott Clements director of polling at the Washington post and scott this study asked americans a handful of questions regarding the current state of international affairs. So what else was revealed and what do these findings suggest? Sure. So uh you know, broadly the poll shows that America's current policy is quite popular. So we find, you know, big support for, as you mentioned, increasing sanctions even beyond what they already are against Russia and big support among both democrats and republicans for providing military support to Ukraine as well as humanitarian support. And you know, where the biden administration and other U. S. Leaders have drawn the line and said they don't want to get US forces involved. The public also is in line with that, 72% opposed the us taking direct military action against Russian forces. Just 21% support that idea. So, you see a mix of real firm willingness to do some things in Stiff opposition to getting involved militarily. So how do americans feel about the way President biden has handled this war and didn't help with his approval rating at all. Well, overall today our poll finds 42% of Americans approving of the way biden is handling situation? 47% disapproving 11%. No opinion. Now that's a negative territory. Of course, Biden's overall approval rating is a little bit worse than that. But it is better than uh two months ago. Right? As the invasion was occurring, Biden's approval rating was just at 33% for handling the issue. So he's got 9% points better on that. The it's really disapproval hasn't come down. It's come from no opinion. So uh he's not as popular as some of the policies that he's been pursuing and part of that is just because people are judging him on a broader range of things, including just sort of the overall situation in Ukraine, which hasn't been very good. So how are sanctions and fighting affecting americans here? And which impact is having the most, I guess feel in the in the United States? Well, we already know people are feeling inflation broadly. You know, that started before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But there has uh there was a big question about how much pain americans are willing to withstand in terms of higher prices for energy or food. Um and it's a real concern, you have a clear majority of americans saying they're concerned about sanctions against Russia contributing to higher energy and food prices in the US. Um people are even more concerned about other potential outcomes like the war expanding further in europe and the US getting involved with the fighting or Russia using nuclear weapons? The views on the war are pretty consistent despite party lines. Why is that? And did that surprise you? Well, you know, anybody who follows polls knows there's always a caveat that views differ so much bipartisan lines. The democrats, republicans don't see things eye to eye. That does not is not true with this pole for once. Uh big majorities americans, regardless of party uh tend to be concerned about the same things with regard to Ukraine and they also support greater support of Ukraine. One thing that's also different in this political debate than most others is that Republican and Democratic leaders have largely been on the same page. Yes, Former President Donald trump did refer to Vladimir Putin as smart in the early days, he was widely criticized for that and not a lot of republicans came out and stood with him. Republican leaders in Congress have generally said some of the same things that democratic leaders have really just pushing to support Ukraine as much as possible and pinning the blame on Russia. Um, those things combined have helped boost support and sympathy for Ukraine in a way that people are willing to suffer higher energy prices and still support sanctions in this study, how did age play a factor. This has been a fascinating pattern over the last two months in our polling as well as others, we find that younger americans are just simply less supportive of assistance to Ukraine. Still most say uh, they support humanitarian support, increased sanctions. This is talking about the Group age 18- 39. Um, but when you ask about increasing military support for Ukraine, uh, that drops to 54% among people ages 40-64 and 47% among those under age 40 drops even further. If you look at Republicans under age 40, support boosting military support for Ukraine, I don't have a great theory on why this is of course, uh, seniors in America remember must remember the Cold War and things with Russia. That's one good theory. But really this is an interesting pattern. It just shows that younger americans are seeing this issue a bit differently than their elders. Absolutely. All right, scott Clement director of polling in the Washington post. This is a super interesting poll scott. Thank you so much for sharing the findings.