If we are entering a new Cold War with Russia, it looks like Democrats will be the most enthusiastic warriors. In a University of Maryland poll of 1,528 registered voters, the results of which were published Tuesday on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, respondents were asked to “name a national or world leader you dislike most.”* Among Democrats, Vladimir Putin was the winner with 30 percent, followed by Donald Trump (18 percent), Kim Jong-un (12 percent), and George W. Bush (4 percent.). A lot of Republicans also hate Putin—he got 8 percent of their votes—but he came in behind Barack Obama (29 percent), Hillary Clinton (23 percent) and Kim Jong-un (9 percent).
The respondents weren’t given choices, so the results don’t necessarily mean all these Republicans think Obama is worse than Kim Jong-un. Maybe Obama is just the first name to pop into their minds. Still, the impact of this election regarding views of Putin is pretty remarkable. Another poll from August showed that the Russian president’s net favorability had jumped from -66 in 2014 to a (still low) -27 this year.
I’m pretty confident in saying that it’s Putin’s perceived support for Donald Trump, rather than his domestic or foreign policies, that has Democrats worked up. In fact, the Maryland poll shows that respondents of both parties would like to see more U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria and a narrow majority of Dems (53 percent) agree that we should “put aside our differences with Russia on the Syrian regime and join forces to fight ISIS.”
Americans don’t like Bashar al-Assad (he was sixth on the most disliked list overall), but it seems like Trump’s argument that we should “knock the hell out of ISIS” is more of a winner than Hillary Clinton and the current administration’s more nuanced and admittedly sometimes contradictory approach of supporting rebels, but not enough to overthrow Assad, and continuing to try to reach a diplomatic agreement with Russia, while admitting that Russia may not be interested in solving the conflict.
Overall, Americans see the war on ISIS as America’s top global priority (53 percent), ahead of immigration, trade, North Korea, Russia and the rise of China—a result that I’m guessing future historians will find very confusing. All this also suggests that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi needs to work on his name recognition.
*Correction, Nov. 2, 2016: This post originally misstated that the poll was published Wednesday. It was published Tuesday.
