Most self-identified Republicans oppose further US aid for Ukraine — and more than three-quarters trust former President Donald Trump above other government and media sources to inform them about the conflict, according to a new poll.
A CBS News/YouGov survey released Sunday found that 61% of Republicans say the US should not send more weapons and other military assistance to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his nation’s war against Russia.
That holds true even when pollsters differentiate between self-identified “MAGA” Republicans and those who do not associate with the direction in which Trump, 77, has dragged the party.
More than two-thirds (69%) of “MAGA” GOPers and 55% of non-“MAGA” Republicans told the pollsters they did not support sending more US funds to Ukraine, compared with 31% and 45% of those groups who did, respectively.
Overall, 39% of Republicans support sending the supplemental funding, while independents are evenly split at 50%.
Nearly three-fourths (74%) of Democrats support additional funding for Kyiv’s war effort against Russian President Vladimir Putin, and 26% are against it.
Pluralities of Republicans (40%) and independents (39%) view Russia as “unfriendly,” while nearly half of Democrats (47%) view the Kremlin as an “enemy” — compared to 36% of independents and just 29% of Republicans.
At the same time, 79% of Republicans trust Trump, their party’s presumptive presidential nominee, to provide them with critical information about the Ukraine-Russia war — a higher percentage than any other source, including the Pentagon (60%), conservative media outlets (56%), journalists within the war zone itself (33%) and the State Department (27%).
The poll also found three in 10 Americans were unable to remember whether the US won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, while 32% said neither great power had come out on top and another 5% said America had lost.
Among that cohort, 51% opposed aid to Ukraine, while the 33% of Americans who said the US did win the Cold War backed assisting Kyiv in a 62%-38% split.
The CBS News/YouGov poll surveyed 2,399 US adults April 9-12, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points.
Among Republican respondents, the poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.1 percentage points.
