As coverage of the House Republican speaker fiasco continues to blot out the sun, two wars that feel a world away for many Americans should still command national attention. In each of them, democracy and the fundamental right to self-determination are at stake. Foreign policy will also likely play a unique role in next year's presidential election, particularly if the world feels like a powder keg to American voters.
In his primetime address Thursday night, President Joe Biden sought to make the case that America's long-term engagement was essential in both the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and nascent Israel-Hamas battle.
But how Americans feel about those wars and which party—or national leader—is best equipped to navigate those crises will be a moving target throughout the coming year.
At present, polls recently conducted by Quinnipiac University and the progressive consortium Navigator Research show fairly strong voter support for aiding both Ukraine and Israel.
Quinnipiac snapshot:
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76% of voters think supporting Israel is in U.S. national interests, including 84% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats, and 74% of independents.
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64% approve of sending weapons and military equipment to Israel in response to the Hamas terrorist attack.
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65% think supporting Ukraine is in the U.S.’s national interests, while 28% disagree.
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56% think U.S. support of Ukraine is either about right (36%) or too little (20%), while 37% say it is too much.
But the baseline numbers on the Israel-Hamas conflict should be taken with a grain of salt at this early juncture. Hamas' brutal terrorist attack is easy to abhor, but the conflict will grow more complicated in the coming months, especially as more innocent Palestinian civilians get caught in the crossfire.
CNN polled whether Israel's military response to the Hamas attack is justified, and the short answer is: It's complicated. Even though 50% of Americans viewed it as fully justified, the responses cut very differently across age groups and partisan lines.
Republicans are far more likely than independents or Democrats to say the response is fully justified (68% of Republicans say so compared with 45% of independents and 38% of Democrats), and older Americans are also much likelier than younger ones to say it is completely justified (81% of those age 65 or older see the response as fully justified, compared with 56% of 50-to-64-year-olds, 44% of 35-to-49-year-olds and 27% of 18-to-34-year-olds). Majorities across age and party, though, say the Israeli response is at least partially justified, with very few Americans of any age or party affiliation saying the response is not at all justified.
The question of which party and leader are most trusted to handle U.S. engagement abroad is also very tricky.
As Navigator found, voters are closely divided on which party they trust more on foreign affairs, but they still trust Republicans by 12 percentage points on national security. Below are two graphs worth considering. One shows a 55% majority supporting military aid to Ukraine, but with clear slippage over the past year and a half; the other shows how closely divided independents are on which party they trust to handle foreign affairs.
55% Support ongoing military aid to Ukraine:
Voters still slightly favor the Republican Party on foreign affairs:
Bottom line: Foreign policy remains a complicated electoral issue, but it's certainly worth tracking over the coming year. If the world feels like a powder keg, foreign policy will likely play a much bigger role in guiding voters' preferences.
As Biden always says: Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.
If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, Democrats will need to frame the choice this way: Do Americans want a lunatic running foreign policy in powder-keg times? Or do they want an unflappable diplomat who walked the wartime streets of Kiev alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while sirens blared, and who visited a Middle East war zone to demonstrate solidarity with Israel while also clearing the way for desperately needed humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians?
Will you vote for a lunatic or a seasoned leader who actually gives a damn about the future of democracy and the welfare of his fellow human beings? That's the choice if Trump and Biden are the nominees.
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