Rasmussen: Voters Losing Faith in Battle Against ISIS
Friday, 20 Mar 2015 07:41 PM
By John Blosser
U.S. voters are losing their fervor for involvement in the battle against the Islamic State as ISIS steps up its vicious attacks despite the allied air war against the group and President Barack Obama asks Congress to approve increased U.S. military involvement.
A Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters found that only 25 percent now think the U.S. is winning the war, while 38 percent say ISIS is winning.
Other poll findings include:
•40 percent say the U.S. should send ground combat troops back to Iraq to fight ISIS, a drop of 12 percentage points from a similar poll in early February, while 34 percent are opposed.
•66 percent say Congress should approve before any troops are sent in, 23 percent disagree, and 12 percent are undecided.
•34 percent approve of how Obama is handling the conflict with ISIS, compared to 38 percent in February.
•42 percent say Obama is doing a poor job of handling ISIS, an increase from 35 percent in a September poll.
The poll results come as ISIS, despite U.S. drone attacks and falling bombs, has ratcheted up its terrorism attacks, with recent suicide bombings of two mosques in Yemen that killed over 100 people and injured hundreds more, Fox News reports.
"In the seven months since allied warplanes in the American-led air campaign began bombing select Islamic State targets, the Sunni militancy, while marginally weaker, has held its own," assaulting Ramadi, the New York Times reports, and, according to Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, head of the U. S. Central Command, becoming even more dangerous through new affiliate groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria.
"ISIS has taken credit for the terrorist killings of 22 this week at a museum in Tunis," Rasmussen says. "Belief that the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 11 years of regular tracking."
Among the additional findings:
•87 percent say they have been closely following news about ISIS, and 48 percent say they have been following it very closely. "The closer a voter is following news reports about ISIS, the more likely he or she is to think the Obama administration is doing a poor job dealing with it," Rasmussen notes.
•59 percent of Democrats approve of the way the administration is handling ISIS. Only 12 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of unaffiliated voters feel that way.
•57 percent of Republicans think ISIS is winning, while 24 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of unaffiliated voters agree.
•59 percent say increased support from outraged Muslim nations after the brutal burning death of a Jordanian pilot will improve the chance of winning.
•53 percent say "our political leaders send the nation's soldiers into harm's way too often."
"GOP voters also believe much more strongly than the others that U.S. troops should be sent back to Iraq as part of an international coalition, but they're also the strongest believers that Congress should have the final say," Rasmussen says.
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