Wondering what Americans are thinking about all this? A new survey of Americans by Reuters and Ipsos conducted since the invasion began has now been released and the results couldn't be any more clear: while most Americans are still against sending in our troops to support the Ukrainian army, they unequivocally, and in a bipartisan manner, favor doing anything and everything short of that that we can possibly do to stop the Russian invasion and support the resistance of the Ukrainian people thereto.
72% of Americans support sending weapons to Ukraine (which we're doing, but could be doing a whole lot more of).
74% favor the U.S. and other NATO countries establishing no-fly zones in Ukraine to stop Russian bombings like Ukrainian President Zelensky has requested. The White House has explicitly ruled this option out on the grounds that such a step risks widening the war.
77% say the United States should seize the assets of Russian oligarchs associated with Vladimir Putin, which is a step President Biden announced we will indeed be pursuing during his State of the Union Address on Monday.
80% of Americans say the United States should stop buying Russian oil, period, and 62% say they're furthermore willing to pay higher prices for gasoline to make this step possible, up from 51% shortly before the invasion. This is an especially serious punitive step the administration clearly has a public mandate to take without risk of widening the war that it so far has refused to take. Let's go Brandon.
81% support imposing tougher sanctions on Russia in general, up from 77% earlier this week.
These positions, moreover, are all remarkably bipartisan in nature. Broad majorities of both Republicans and Democrats alike favor each and every one of these steps. There is just one exception to this rule:
Only 45% of Americans approve of President Biden's overall handling of the crisis, although this is notably up from just 34% last week, suggesting that, as the president has taken stronger actions against Russia, support for the administration's position has increased. The data here also pretty clearly implies what the path is to majority approval: the public wants stronger action taken, even if it means paying a price here at home. Support for stronger action in general appears to literally be growing by the day.
