Author(s): Unknown
Source: rasmussenreports.com. Article date: September 2nd, 2014
Voters regard the radical Islamic terrorist group ISIS as a major threat to the United States and are very worried that President Obama doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with the problem. They remain reluctant to send U.S. troops back to Iraq to take on ISIS, but support is growing.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters consider the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a serious threat to this country. Just 13% disagree, while another 20% are not sure. (
To see survey questions wording, click here.)
The president said last week at a press conference that the United States doesn’t have a strategy yet for dealing with the group which threatens to defeat democratic forces in Iraq and send the messy civil war in Syria further out of control. Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters are concerned that the United States does not have a strategy for dealing with this military group, with 47% who are Very Concerned. Twenty-five percent (25%) are not concerned by this lack of a strategy, but that includes only four percent (4%) who are Not At All Concerned.
The president has authorized selective U.S. airstrikes to halt ISIS advances but has ruled out sending troops back to Iraq. Just 30% think the United States should send troops to defeat ISIS, but that’s up from 12% last December. Opposition to sending troops back to Iraq has fallen dramatically from 71% in December to 58% a month ago. Now just 41% feel that way. A sizable 29% are undecided.
Most voters approve of the president’s decision to launch U.S. military airstrikes against ISIS forces in Iraq but still think the radical Islamic insurgents are likely to take control of the country.
Twenty-nine percent (29%) rate the Obama administration’s response to ISIS as good or excellent, while 42% say it’s done a poor job.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 30-31, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Belief that the United States is winning the War on Terror has plummeted to its lowest level in over 10 years of regular tracking.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of voters say they have been following recent news reports about the fighting in Iraq and Syria, with 45% who have been following Very Closely.
The reason for the president’s hesitancy may be explained in part by the finding that just 52% of Democrats consider ISIS a serious threat to the United States, compared to 82% of Republicans and 70% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
Democrats are much less concerned about the president’s lack of a strategy for dealing with the radical Islamic group.
Forty-four percent (44%) of Republicans think the United States should send troops back to Iraq to defeat ISIS, but only 21% of Democrats and 26% of unaffiliated voters agree.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of the Political Class think the administration has done a good or excellent job responding to the threat from ISIS. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Mainstream voters rate the administration’s performance in this area as poor.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters who consider ISIS a serious threat to the United States believe the administration has done a poor job. By a 40% to 33% margin, these voters favor sending U.S. troops to Iraq.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of all voters think the U.S. government should hunt down the ISIS terrorist who beheaded a U.S. journalist on a video posted online, and even more voters think he should receive the death penalty if tried in a U.S. court.
Voter perceptions of U.S.-Islamic relations continue to deteriorate since President Obama’s highly publicized speech in Cairo, Egypt five years ago reaching out to the Islamic world.
Voters have long expressed little enthusiasm for getting more involved in Middle East politics, but they are slightly less likely to think this involvement hurts both the region and the United States.
Sixty percent (60%) think America’s political leaders send U.S. soldiers into harm’s way too often, and 48% believe the United States is too involved in the affairs of other countries.
Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.
but our outgoing president is still as clueless as
ever about the nation he governed.
President Barack Obama proclaimed that he made
America better by “almost every measure.”
lands squarely in the realm of delusion.
America demonstrably weaker and more divided.
Rather than the promised “healing”—racial
and other—the Obama era frayed the ties that
bind us.
open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party. It was essentially a
declaration that his administration would use
the Voting Rights Act to protect only certain races.
that America was an inherently racist society
with a biased judicial and law enforcement system.
Obama rekindled a racial divide that had been
steadily disappearing in American society.
advantage, the Obama administration only
divided the American people. And the people
know it.
of Americans felt “race relations have gotten
worse since Obama’s election”—a far cry from
the president’s claim of “better” race relations
under his administration.
health care costs while bringing Americans
better insurance coverage. Neither claim is true.
an average of 25 percent in states with exchanges.
Deductibles are through the roof. And people
shopping for more affordable insurance are
finding far fewer options.
providers participating in health care exchanges
than last year.
previously uninsured people now covered are
enrolled in Medicaid—a troubled and increasingly
stressed program that actually delivers poorer
health outcomes than those of people with
no insurance at all.
repeal the consistently unpopular law than keep]
it, according to a recent Kaiser Health tracking poll.
a “new chapter with the Cuban people,” but it
appears the new chapter for the Cuban people
is one behind bars. Since Obama began
“normalization,” arrests of Cuban political
dissidents have escalated, with over 9,000
political arrests made in 2016.
has a dismal human rights record. The influx
of American capital blessed by normalization
will only bolster the regime.
recognition with no conditions and no requirements
to stop the oppression. In Cuban-American
communities, the widespread celebrations of
Fidel Castro’s death stood in stark contrast to
the bitter disappointment in Obama’s failure to
stand for freedom and liberty in Cuba.
ignored his real record: eight years of economic
stagnation. Instead, he offered happy talk:
“The good news is that today the economy is
growing again.”
with low increases in gross domestic product, a
low labor participation rate, increased cost of
living in cities, and lower-than-expected wage
growth.
business creation and investment, the president
fostered an environment of class warfare and
instituted policies, including Obamacare and
overregulation in many other areas, which
increased the barriers to entry for small
businesses and entrepreneurs.
of his “pen and phone” approach to governance.
First expressed in 2014, it reflects his belief that
the limits of the Constitution on the power of the
presidency do not apply to him.
policy-making through executive fiat than almost
any previous president—bending, changing,
rewriting, and ignoring the law at will.
law or welfare work requirements, to ignoring
statutory deadlines, to making illegal recess
appointments, Obama abused his office and
his power. That is not something to be proud of.
skirted around the truth of cities riddled with
racial tension and soaring crime rates, small
businesses ruined by rising health care costs
and crushing regulations, a metastasizing
national debt, and a foreign policy that seems
to favor authoritarian regimes over our allies.
attending Obama’s last speech. But the broad
swathes of the American people who have
suffered the consequences of his misgovernance
for eight long years stopped buying it months,
if not years, ago.