Poll: Majority Say Joe Biden’s Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Ineffective

Most voters believe President Joe Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been relatively ineffective, a Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday found.

The survey, which asked respondents, “How effective has President Joe Biden’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine been so far?” found a majority, 54 percent, deeming the president’s response ineffective. Of those, 30 percent said his response is “not at all effective,” followed by 24 percent who said “not very effective.” 

Both Republicans and independents, 73 percent and 63 percent, respectively, say Biden’s response has not been effective, but most Democrats, 65 percent, believe it has been:

There is little disagreement along party lines on whether economic sanctions will stop the Russian invasion – less than 30% of all categories think sanctions will be enough. Majorities of every category – 84% of Republicans, 70% of Democrats and 77% of unaffiliated voters – also agree that a successful Russian conquest of Ukraine would likely encourage China to invade Taiwan.

The survey, taken Match 1-2, 2022, among 1,000 likely voters, has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. 

Biden spoke about the crisis across the globe at length in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, mistakenly referring to Ukrainians as “Iranians.” 

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people,” Biden said during the live address. “..[W]e, the United States of America, stand with the Ukrainian people,” he continued, while touting “powerful economic sanctions” against Russia. 

“Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more,” Biden declared. 

Critics, however, have blasted Biden for failing to hit Vladimir Putin where it really hurts: the gas pump. 

“This is a guy who’s basically an authoritarian gas station attendant, ok, with some legacy nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said of Putin during a press conference this week. 

“Their whole society is hollowed out except for that energy. And so if you want to hit them, hit them at the gas pump. Hit them with energy,” DeSantis said, noting that Biden stripped America of its status of being energy-independent, worsening the issue and creating dependency on “rogue parts of the world.”

“[Biden] has stepped on the necks of our domestic energy here in the United States. We should have Keystone reactivated in the United States. He should get rid of the ban on producing in federal lands, and he should welcome more domestic energy production. We were before Biden took office, for the first time in any of our lifetimes, actually energy independent. Putin didn’t matter,” DeSantis said, adding that the U.S. is now “importing millions of barrels of oil from Russia.”

“My feeling is they haven’t done enough —Europe or Biden’s administration — to really hit Putin where it counts, and that’s because they have been so weak on domestic energy,” he added. 

During the SOTU, Biden announced the U.S. worked with dozens of other countries “to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world,” and added that 30 million of those would come from our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve. However, he made no mention of drastically shifting gears and changing his domestic policies to make energy independence a reality for America once more.