With wars in Ukraine and the Middle East looming over the U.S. election, voters give former President Donald Trump the edge over Vice President Kamala Harris on who would better navigate the country through both conflicts, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll of seven battleground states.
Trump leads Harris among swing-state voters, 50% to 39%, on who is best able to handle Russia’s war in Ukraine and has a wider advantage, 48% to 33%, on who is better suited to handle the Israel-Hamas war. The Republican nominee has pointed to his tenure in the White House as a time of relative peace around the world and has claimed—without providing details—that he could resolve both conflicts quickly if he wins in November.
While the survey echoed other polls suggesting foreign policy isn’t a priority for voters in November, the next president nonetheless stands to inherit a pair of conflicts with no clear end in sight and in which U.S. involvement has polarized the electorate. The question of which candidate offers the right mix of experience and leadership has been an important one in the race.
On one side of the aisle, Republican opposition to U.S. military assistance for Ukraine has grown as its fight since Russia’s full-scale invasion is poised to spill into its fourth year. Democrats, meanwhile, have been split on whether the U.S. should continue arming Israel in its yearlong battle with Hamas in the midst of intensifying criticism of high civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Trump’s lead on both conflicts appears to be buoyed in part by independents, nearly half of whom said he would better handle the Ukraine-Russia war, compared with about a third who favored Harris. On the Israel-Hamas war, 43% of independents rated Trump as better, while 26% said the same of Harris and the rest didn’t choose one or the other.