WASHINGTON — In 2020, voters saw the Covid-19 pandemic as the biggest global threat. Now, as Americans consider 2024 presidential candidates, a different fear is top of mind: a battle of superpowers armed with nuclear weapons.
Americans with strong feelings about U.S. foreign policy decisions are torn between helping Ukraine win a war against Russia or shifting focus eastward to what they regard as the larger danger.
“What keeps me up at night is China,” said Ginny Kerr, a 77-year-old retired medical technologist and independent voter. “I fear China more than Russia and I think people ought to wake up to that.”
While President Joe Biden and the Republican presidential contenders would all prefer to discuss how to combat the rising influence of China, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine have been impossible to ignore for candidates and voters alike.
The U.S. government has spent more than $100 billion on aid for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. While the American public is overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine, some voters are less keen to increase financial support for Ukraine. Others, meanwhile, believe the U.S. government should shift its focus from Moscow to Beijing.
Biden, who is expected to coast to the 2024 Democratic nomination, has been unequivocal in his support for Ukraine. At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Biden declared the United States “will not waver” in its support for Kyiv.
The situation is more complicated with Republican presidential candidates.
Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two leading candidates for the GOP nomination, have both expressed skepticism about whether the U.S. government should continue to fund Ukraine. Republican candidates who are more supportive of Ukraine have lagged behind in the polls.
‘I don’t think he knows how to find Ukraine on a map’
Trump and DeSantis have drawn criticism over their comments on Ukraine from voices within and outside their own Republican Party.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he can end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, but two of his 2024 opponents — former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — said Trump can only end the war that quickly if he capitulates to Putin’s demands.
The criticism has also come from across the aisle.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview with USA TODAY that Trump struggles to support Ukraine because he is “in bed with Putin.”
Connolly also took aim at DeSantis, who described the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” before walking back his comments.
“I know Ron DeSantis, I worked with him in Congress,” he said. “I don’t think he has any particular interest in or knowledge of foreign policy.”
“I don’t think he knows how to find Ukraine on a map,” Connolly added.
Voters split on support for Ukraine
The Ukraine skepticism, however, is resonating with some independent and Republican voters who don’t want to see the U.S. government spend more money on a war thousands of miles away.
“We don’t know where the money is going and we need it in this country,” Kerr said. “There’s so many people in need.”
“Charity begins at home,” she added.
But for some voters who support sending aid to Ukraine, the issue will also be a priority in the 2024 presidential election.
Yulia Kindziayeva, 42, a Democrat living in California’s Bay Area, said it is “very important for the world to defeat the regime” of Vladimir Putin.
Kindziayeva said that continued support for Kyiv will be a “number one issue for me to decide on who to vote for” in the next presidential election. She said it became her “main issue” after Russia invaded last year.
Why the war in Ukraine is bigger than Ukraine
Foreign policy experts and some 2024 presidential candidates believe supporting Ukraine is intertwined with successfully countering China.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for two years, said in a CNN town hall last month that the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine.”
“This is a war about freedom and it’s one we have to win,” she said. “When Ukraine wins that sends a message to China with Taiwan, it sends a message to Iran that wants to build a bomb, sends a message to North Korea testing ballistic missiles, and it sends a message to Russia that it’s over.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said in an interview with USA TODAY that helping Ukraine win the war is in the United States’ best interest if it wants to send a strong message to Beijing.
“If we look like we’re not ready to back the Ukrainians and we’re pulling out, that sends a very negative signal to the Taiwanese that we’re not going to be there to support them,” he said.
‘The calling of our lifetime’
While Haley was appointed by Trump to serve as an ambassador to the United Nations, no 2024 presidential candidate has as much experience with Ukraine as Biden does.
As vice president, Biden traveled to Ukraine six times including serving as the American representative at the first Ukrainian presidential inauguration after the 2013-2014 Maidan revolution. He also visited Ukraine as president earlier this year, making a surprise trip to Kyiv to meet in-person with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Biden could stand to benefit from his expertise with Ukraine as he seeks reelection to the White House.
McFaul, who served as ambassador to Moscow during the Obama administration, said that in the run-up to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Biden became the “point person on Ukraine.”
“We’ve never had a president that’s known as much about Ukraine as President Biden has,” McFaul said.
Although most Democrats support aid for Kyiv, Biden’s top challenger for the Democratic nomination, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has called for less U.S. involvement in Ukraine, describing it as a “proxy war” between the United States and Russia.
While McFaul said he believes Biden should send more weapons to Ukraine and impose “better sanctions” on Russia and supporters of Russia’s invasion, he also noted the U.S. response to the war would have been significantly different if Biden did not win the 2020 election.
“Certainly, had President Trump been reelected, I’m not sure we would have had the same response vis-à-vis Ukraine and Russia for sure, and also the NATO alliance,” McFaul said.
In Vilnius, Biden reiterated his own commitment to Ukraine and achieving peace in Europe.
“The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It’s the calling of our lifetime — of all time,” Biden said. “We are steeled for the struggle ahead.”
