Nearly two-thirds of Nevada voters support continuing military assistance to Ukraine — a key political issue that has divided the Republican Party and will be a major international issue for the next president.

Sixty-four percent of Nevadans, after being presented with arguments in favor of and against continued American support of Ukraine in its war against Russia, believe in continuing assistance to the country, according to a new poll. Support for Ukraine varied significantly between Democrats and Republicans — 78 percent of Nevada Democrats want to see military assistance continue, only 50 percent of Republicans indicated the same.

Nevadans’ agreement with aid for Ukraine skewed close to the national average of 67 percent, per the poll. Nevadans with a college degree and those younger than 29 showed the highest percentages of support, while white voters and women were among the lowest, though still above 60 percent.

The poll is the latest to be conducted by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, and is one of several issue-focused polls the group is conducting in swing states ahead of the 2024 general election. In Nevada, 604 adults were polled in online opt-in surveys from July 19 to Aug. 2, with a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

Nevadans were also polled on their belief in collective security principles promoted by the United Nations, the U.S.’ continued involvement in NATO and participation in the global moratorium on nuclear testing, with majorities supporting continued U.S. engagement in each instance of multinational cooperation. 

While Democrats were more in favor of continued U.S. participation in collective security, NATO and abiding by the moratorium on nuclear testing than Republicans, the partisan gap was most stark on the issue of Ukraine — reflecting the national divide on the issue in Congress.

President Joe Biden has forcefully made the case for continued military aid to Ukraine on the basis of the NATO agreement, meant to deter Russian aggression. While Ukraine is not a NATO member nation, its neighbors, such as Poland, are — meaning the U.S. has a duty to come to its defense if it were to be attacked. 

Biden and allies have argued that arming Ukraine, as it has since the Russian invasion began in early 2022, is a significant deterrent toward future U.S. military involvement. If Russia were to easily take Ukraine, they argue, Russian President Vladimir Putin could be emboldened to threaten a NATO country, obligating the U.S. to send troops.

That line of thinking was persuasive to several respondents. 

“We can either spend blood or treasure,” one respondent wrote in an open-ended response supporting military assistance to Ukraine. “Spending treasure is preferred.”

But with Ukraine having become a partisan flashpoint, the partisan gap was evident in the poll. While 84 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans favored the U.S. continuing to be part of NATO (an 11 percentage point difference), the gap swelled to 28 percentage points when respondents were polled on whether the U.S. should send military aid to Ukraine.

“Americans really do respond, in general, to the whole notion of collective security and that countries should band together to protect nations from aggression,” pollster Steven Kull, a political psychologist at the University of Maryland and director of the Program for Public Consultation, said in an interview with The Nevada Independent. “And then you get into the specifics of Ukraine and how long it's been going on, and then you have more of a partisan split.”

The debate played out on Capitol Hill in the winter, after House Republicans held hostage a national security supplemental package providing military assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, in addition to stricter regulations at the U.S.-Mexico border, over a dispute about how to tackle the border. 

Eventually, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought each of the national security-focused parts to the floor in April. Nevada Democratic Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, as well as the state’s two Democratic senators, voted in favor of the Ukraine supplemental, while Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), who had previously been in support of funding Ukraine, voted no.

Among GOP House candidates, Drew Johnson, running against Lee, visited Ukraine in 2023 and has said that the solution to ending the war is neither “blank checks” to Ukraine nor “looking the other way while a brutal dictator invades sovereign nations.” In an email to The Nevada Independent, Republican candidate Mark Robertson (who is facing Titus) said he supports sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, but not financial assistance, for fear of corruption. 

“It is vital that we maintain and strengthen the NATO alliance, while insisting that all member countries contribute their agreed to amounts,” he added.

Meanwhile, former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, running against Horsford, criticized his opponent for voting for Ukraine aid and referred to the war as an “endless foreign entanglement” that Congress had prioritized over domestic concerns.

“We can’t keep writing blank checks overseas while our own borders and communities are suffering,” Lee said in a statement to The Nevada Independent.

The Republican Party has been split on the issue, with much of the opposition led by former President Donald Trump. Trump has pledged to leave NATO if elected again and has suggested ending the Russia-Ukraine war by negotiating a peace deal that would allow Russia to keep parts of Ukraine. He has also said he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” with NATO members who do not live up to the agreement’s spending targets.

Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), his running mate, has been one of the strongest skeptics of the post-World War II international order in Congress. Vance has argued throughout the course of the war that the U.S. has already spent too much money on Ukraine and that he “[doesn’t] really care” what happens to the war-torn country. 

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has expressed positions in line with Biden, pledging at the Democratic National Convention to “stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

The poll found Trump’s position on NATO is out of step with the majority of Nevadans. While majorities found arguments against continued NATO participation convincing, when asked to make a decision, 76 percent of Nevadans favored staying in NATO — including 73 percent of Republicans.

“It’s eight in 10,” Kull said. “We're talking really robust responses. And we put in front of them [that] the U.S. has been spending tens of billions of dollars on this. But in the end, it's quite strong.”

Down the ballot, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) has continually voted in support of continuing Ukraine assistance. Her Republican opponent Sam Brown’s position on Ukraine has been more murky; he has called for “no more blank checks” to Ukraine and said that more accountability is needed, while saying after winning the nomination that the U.S. should not “turn off” military assistance.

Nevadans polled also broadly agreed with abiding by the international moratorium on nuclear testing (73 percent) and that Congress should have to authorize an offensive nuclear strike (63 percent). In the mid-20th century, the U.S. military conducted nuclear tests in the desert in Nye County, raising environmental and public health concerns for those who lived through it.

“We still do not know the long term effects of the testing that was done previously, let alone what future weapons could do,” one respondent wrote. “Why mess around and mess up the planet even more?”

This story was updated at 8 a.m. on 8/28/2024 to add a statement from John Lee.