HARVARD: 62% say Putin would not invade Ukraine if Trump were president

A clear majority of American voters say Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if former President Donald Trump had still been in office, according to a new poll released Friday.

The survey, conducted by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) and The Harris Poll, found that 62% of registered voters polled said that Trump would have deterred Putin from taking military action in Ukraine if he were still president. Looking only at those who identified with a political party, 86% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats answered this way.

59% of Americans polled also believed Putin moved on Ukraine because he saw weakness in current President Joe Biden, while 41% said it was not a factor.

Putin announced a “special military operation” to “demilitarize” Ukraine after tensions escalated over NATO’s potential expansion eastward toward Russia. Biden announced new sanctions aimed at crippling Russian business which have not appeared to deter Russian forces steady progress toward Kiev.

The same poll found that Biden’s approval rating hit 38%, among the lowest recorded during his first term. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an unwelcome addition to the other issues dogging the Biden administration like the delta and omicron waves of COVID-19, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and Democrats’ stalled legislative agenda.

"On the eve of his State of the Union, the president has hit a new low as inflation and economic anxiety hit new highs. The president is now underwater on every top domestic and foreign policy issue," Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, told The Hill.

RealClearPolitics showed that Biden’s approval had been slowly improving over the last month before the outbreak of the crisis in Ukraine.