Despite Trump’s decidedly critical tone toward Ukraine and its president and warm gestures toward Russia, the level of overall American public sympathy with Ukraine and the lack of sympathy for Russia have not changed since the summer of 2024. If the intent of the public spat with Zelenskyy was to sour the American mood toward Ukraine, the latest poll indicates that it was a failure, not only in the continued high level of sympathy with Ukraine but also in that more people rated Trump’s performance as inappropriate than said the same about the Ukrainian president’s performance in that unprecedented meeting.
With only about one-third of Americans supporting his decision to suspend aid to Ukraine, Trump may have helped himself by quickly renewing the provision of aid and getting Ukraine to reportedly agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia.
As one might expect, the president has had some impact on his core Republican constituency. But the drop in Republican sympathy with Ukraine from 58% last summer to 45% now is modest if one considers that the Republican president is still in his early honeymoon period.
Trump received more support from Republicans for his aid suspension, with about two-thirds supporting the decision, and 21% opposing it. But while favoring Trump, one might expect more support for a president from his own party on a top and high-profile policy issue this early in his term.
Of course, a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war could impact public attitudes moving forward, especially at a time when polls show more Americans favor a quick end to the war. For now, though, the bottom line is that the American public appears to have made up its mind on Ukraine and Russia and Trump is cutting against the grain.
This article is like a case study in how to present data to support the conclusion you want. Sure, more people support Ukraine than Russia, and that question would be relevant if the question was "which side to support" rather than "whether to continue being involved."
The reality that the polls show is that it breaks down along partisan lines. 2/3 of Republicans support the suspension of aid to Ukraine, and of the 21% who oppose it, only half say the support should continue "as long as it takes," with the other half saying either less than a year or 1-2 years. So only about 10% of Republicans are on board with supporting Ukraine for "as long as it takes," with the majority opposing aid entirely, and the rest either unsure or wanting it to be time-limited.
This marks a significant departure from the start of the war when there was wide bipartisan support. Based on the actual numbers in the article, the headline is dead wrong - Trump has dampened support for the war, mostly just within his base.