Where voters stand on more funding for Ukraine and Israel

Correction: A graphic mislabeled the number of registered voters who approve and disapprove of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. That graphic has been corrected and updated. We regret the error.

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Washington to ask lawmakers for more money to fight Russia, 36 percent of Americans say that the United States should not authorize more funds for war in either Ukraine or Israel, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

At the same time, 32 percent of Americans overall said they support authorization for increased war funding in both countries. Fewer Americans think aid should go only to Ukraine or only to Israel — 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Conducted Dec. 4 through Dec. 7, the poll’s mixed support helps illustrate why the Biden administration and those who support more help for Ukraine face “an uphill battle,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist. Much of the White House’s messaging around Ukraine has focused on the global implications of supporting an ally “that most voters don’t wrap their head around,” Heye said.

Debate on whether to approve more Ukraine assistance has dragged on for weeks. President Joe Biden has requested $110 billion in combined funding for both foreign war support and domestic defense needs, including $61.4 billion to aid Ukraine’s defense against Russia.

Biden has struggled to gain support on Capitol Hill as Republican lawmakers say they won’t agree to a deal that doesn’t include changes on U.S. border and immigration policy.

Chart by Megan McGrew/ PBS NewsHour

The U.S. has spent $111 billion on aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded that country in February 2022, some of which has also helped strengthen U.S. intelligence operations and military capabilities. Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young wrote to Congress this week, stressing, “We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight. This isn’t a next year problem.”

In addition to urging Congress, Heye said that proponents need to sell the idea of increased funding for Ukraine to voters. “Failing to talk about this issue in a way to incentivize voters and members of Congress to support funding then dooms us for failure.”

Zelenskyy visited the White House and Capitol Hill on Tuesday to make his case to Biden and U.S. lawmakers for more funding as Russia’s protracted war against his nation continues.

“Without supplemental funding, we’re rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond to urgent operational demands that it has. Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine. We must, we must, we must prove him wrong,” Biden said in a joint news conference with Zelenskyy.

The Biden administration also has asked for more funding to help Israel in its war with Hamas. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced by Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has drawn international humanitarian concerns and growing calls to halt its assault, including by the United Nations General Assembly, which voted Tuesday for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire.” Biden told reporters Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration “is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” and it risked losing international support because of “indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”

American attitudes over funding wars in other countries remained statistically frozen over the last month, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

Recent polling on the issue of funding wars elsewhere reflects the fact “that the signals coming from party leaders are pretty mixed right now,” said political scientist Marc Hetherington, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Biden approval remains rocky

More people disapprove than approve of Biden’s leadership , according to this latest poll.

About half of Americans — 53 percent — don’t like what Biden is doing while in the White House. That includes 93 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents. Another 40 percent support what he is doing, including 79 percent of Democrats.

Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

This latest poll comes at a tender moment in Biden’s reelection campaign, with the first primary contests just over a month away. Biden said during a Dec. 5 fundraising event outside Boston that if Donald Trump were not running a third time for president, “I’m not sure I’d be running.”

Despite Trump’s legal troubles, including multiple state and federal indictments stemming from efforts to overturn the 2020 election (among other criminal and civil cases), he remains the Republican Party’s frontrunner.

Trump’s political resilience “is confounding,” Hetherington said, and will intrigue political scientists for decades. “How does someone who is all of this trouble remain as popular as he does?”

Heye said even the Republican presidential candidates who have drawn steady support, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, do not appear eager to lock horns with Trump. “They don’t really go after him — not in a way that suggests they want to beat him.”

Nationally, Biden and Trump receive a similar amount of support. In this latest poll, 40 percent said they held a favorable view of Biden (an attitude that has remained virtually unchanged since at least April 2022), while 38 percent said the same about Trump, which has changed little since he was elected in late 2016.

If registered voters were casting ballots for the 2024 presidential race today, 49 percent said they would support Biden (including 91 percent of Democrats, 45 percent of independents and 5 percent of Republicans), according to this latest poll. Another 48 percent said they backed Trump. That included 93 percent of Republicans, 8 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of independents.

This poll comes as the House of Representatives moves to formalize its impeachment inquiry into Biden. Forty-nine percent of Americans support the inquiry, which remains “at its infancy,” Heye said. A White House spokesman called it a “baseless stunt” last week.

Graphic by Megan McGrew/ PBS NewsHour

House Republicans have been working to secure votes for a resolution opening an impeachment inquiry, a process that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., started in September.

Can abortion move the needle in 2024?

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, the issue of abortion access “is very much to the Democrats’ advantage,” Hetherington said. “Middle-of-the-road voters really didn’t want to see those changes” made to Roe v. Wade. Some of this year’s prominent midterm elections favored Democrats, as voters considered new – or the prospect of future – state restrictions on abortion.

But Heye said that Democrats are making a risky gamble if they hope to gain political momentum on this issue in 2024.

Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

“My caution to Democrats is that when you are behind or underperforming in virtually every other category, including whether or not your boss can stand up and do the job, that’s a huge egg to put in the basket,” he said.

This week, the Texas Supreme Court denied a woman’s request for a medical exception to receive an abortion. Kate Cox said her health providers told her she needed an abortion and she faced imminent medical harm. Ultimately, Cox left the state to seek an abortion.

READ MORE: Texas woman who sought court permission for abortion leaves state for the procedure, attorneys say

The judges’ decision largely falls outside of what Americans overwhelmingly say they want when thinking about a national abortion law, according to the latest poll.

• 85 percent of U.S. adults (and 77 percent of Republicans) said that if the U.S. had a national abortion law, it should make exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of a pregnant person.
• 21 percent of Republicans said that if there were a national law restricting abortion, no exceptions should be made .
• About half of Americans (including 70 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents) say abortion laws should be decided by each individual state.
• 43 percent of Americans said that abortion laws should be decided at the national level.
• 21 percent of Americans say abortion should never be allowed, including 35 percent of Republicans.

The PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a survey on Dec. 4 through Dec. 7 that polled 1,259 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points and 1,129 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.