Is there a Partisan Divide in Citizens' Preferences on Ukraine Support? Survey-Experimental Evidence from the US

The 2025 shift from Biden’s Democratic to Trump’s Republican administration led to a relevant change in US strategy for the war in Ukraine. Models of democratic responsiveness imply that this would also be reflected in divergent preferences among US partisan voters regarding the normative, strategic, and economic considerations connected to supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Do voters on the political left and right resolve these trade-offs differently? We bring conjoint and vignette survey experiments with 2,334 US citizens to this question. We show that absolute levels of support for Ukraine are lower among Republicans. However, irrespective of partisanship, citizens resolve the fundamental trade-offs involved in Ukraine policy similarly. Average support is higher for strategies that sustain the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of Ukraine compared to concessions to Russia -- even if less strongly so among (moderate) US Republicans. Both Democrat and Republican voters show relevant concern for the human costs of war, domestic economic costs, and escalation risk -- with economic costs resonating more among Republicans. Our results imply, tentatively, that differences in partisan preferences are smaller than the US administrations’ drawback of Ukraine support would let expect. Overall, for a case where normative motivations for intervention loom large, public support is not structured as expected along the left-right axis.