Department or Program

Politics

Abstract

The United States has played a critical role in supporting Ukraine since 1991, however, American attitudes toward Ukraine have become increasingly divided along partisan lines since 2022. Public opinion surveys illustrate that while Republicans were more supportive of aiding Ukraine than Democrats after Russia’s 2014 invasion, by 2024, Republican support for Ukraine has significantly declined, while Democratic support has surpassed that of Republicans. Current scholarly literature on American partisanship, the influence of political elites on American attitudes, public opinion on foreign policy, and Donald Trump’s impact on American voters produce a strong foundation for analyzing American polarization toward foreign policy. However, there is limited research connecting these four topics to explain Donald Trump’s impact on American attitudes toward Ukraine. Using data from the Cooperative Election Study, I conduct a series of tests to measure whether Trump has had a distinct impact on Ukraine attitudes above and beyond the associated effects of party affiliation, voter attentiveness and personal ideology. This analysis contributes two core findings to scholarly discussions. Firstly, being a supporter of Trump, Biden or Harris was the dominant predictor of support for Ukraine, beyond the effects of partisanship, where Biden and Harris supporters were amplified in their predicted support, and Trump supporters had decreased levels of support. Secondly, while Biden and Harris supporters were amplified in predicted support at higher levels of political attentiveness, Trump supporters had no distinguishable variation in predicted support for Ukraine regardless of their level of political attentiveness. The results of this research contribute to scholarly discussions on political elites, illustrating that alignment with a presidential candidate, rather than a party, can be the dominant driver in foreign policy preference formation. Moreover, alignment with Trump produced unique patterns in foreign policy attitudes that deviated not only from Democratic candidate supporters, but also from supporters of previous Republican elites, contributing to debates on whether Trump’s influence on public opinion dynamics has been unprecedented.

Level of Access

Open Access

First Advisor

Baughman, John

Date of Graduation

5-2026

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Number of Pages

147

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