President Trump’s visit to the Middle East is his first diplomatic trip of the new administration, in hopes of increasing investment in the US and bringing peace to this conflict zone. A significant theme of his campaign was ending America’s involvement in “endless wars” like Iraq and Afghanistan. In light of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan during the Biden administration, voters believe that America’s adversaries have become emboldened. From our April survey for Winning the Issues (April 8-10), we explored how voters weigh these two concepts as concerns in foreign policy.
In terms of the greater foreign policy concern, voters are nearly split between America getting involved in endless and costly wars (45%) and the threat of emboldened adversaries (48%), but there are significant differences by party.
Republicans tend to see endless wars as the bigger threat (51-42), but with conservative Republicans being more evenly split between the two foreign policy challenges (47-49). Independent voters tend to lean toward emboldened adversaries as the greater concern (48%) over endless wars (43%), but the margin is only 5 points. This close margin among independents is likely affected by this group’s longstanding concerns about the deficit and government spending. Democratic voters prioritize the threat of emboldened adversaries 54-42.
Among Republican voters, there is more of a difference by gender rather than age. Republican men tend to see a greater threat from emboldened adversaries (52%) than endless wars (42%), while Republican women are more concerned about endless and costly wars by almost 2:1 (61-31).
As we have seen in recent years, foreign policy is one of the issues that traditional Republican positions are evolving, and as these numbers indicate, will continue to be a source of internal policy debate.
