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

Models of democratic responsiveness imply that consistent US foreign policy is furthered by bipartisan agreement on core US strategy. A broad literature indicates, however, that politics does not stop ‘at water’s edge’, suggesting relevant differences between more ‘dovish’ Democrat-leaning and more ‘hawkish’ Republican-leaning voters. I revisit this question for the case of US support strategies aiding Ukraine against the Russian invasion in 2022. In particular, I investigate the extent of partisan differences in both overall agreement and the hard trade-offs between competing normative, strategic, and economic considerations connected to supporting Ukraine. Do Democrat and Republican-leaning voters deal with these trade-offs differently? I bring conjoint and vignette survey experimental evidence from 2,334 US citizens to this question. I 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. Strategies that sustain Ukraine’s territorial integrity and political sovereignty, rather than concessions to Russia, are substantively more likely to be chosen, irrespective of partisanship, even if less strongly so among (moderate) US Republicans. Both Democrat and Republican voters show similarly high concern for the human costs of war, domestic economic costs, and escalation risk – with economic costs resonating more among Republicans. These results imply that for a case where both normative and strategic motivations for intervention loom large, public support is not structured as expected from ‘partisan types’. Tentatively, this indicates that differences in partisan preferences are no constraint for persisting US support to Ukraine.