Poll: American’s approval of President Biden’s approach on Russia and Ukraine rises

President Biden’s approval rating for his handling of Russia and Ukraine has risen 5 percentage points since the start of the war in Eastern Europe more than two weeks ago, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, including a 12-point gain among self-described independent voters.

The survey of 1,623 U.S. adults, which was conducted from March 10th to 14th, found that as the invasion wears on, Americans are becoming increasingly appalled by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and increasingly aligned with the Biden administration’s response.

The percentage of respondents who now say Biden is doing “a better job leading his country” than Putin, for instance, climbed 7 points (from 33% to 40%), while the percentage who say Putin is doing a better job leading than Biden fell by roughly the same amount (from 19% to 10%), which is a net swing of 16 points in Biden’s direction.

This reflected both an increase in Democrats choosing Biden (from 68% to 80%) and a decrease in Republicans choosing Putin (from 36% to 19%), with a corresponding rise in Republicans choosing “neither” (from 46% to 63%).

Independents, meanwhile, went from evenly divided (22% Putin vs. 21% Biden) to picking the U.S. president as the better leader by a 3-1 margin (33% Biden vs. 10% Putin).

Overall, more Americans now believe that Biden’s response to Russia has either been “about right” (31%) or “too tough” (6%) than believe it has “not [been] tough enough” (34%), with the share saying the latter falling by 5 points over the last two weeks.

That decline was similar among Republicans (down 6 points, from 58% to 52%), independents (down 6 points, from 44% to 38%) and Democrats (down 4 points, from 25% to 21%).

Overall, just 39% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of “the situation with Russia and Ukraine” (up from 34% two weeks ago), while 48% still disapprove.

And even though Biden’s approval on Russia and Ukraine among independents climbed by a dozen points, it’s still just 38%. More independents (44%) continue to say “neither” Biden nor Putin is doing a better job leading.