Poll: Most Americans Say Send Ground Troops to Fight ISIS

[Barb135]

Washington (CNN)With President Barack Obama set to address the nation on ISIS and terrorism tonight, a new CNN/ORC Poll finds Americans increasingly displeased with the President's handling of terrorism and more willing to send U.S. ground troops into the fight against ISIS.

For the first time in CNN/ORC polling, a majority of Americans (53%) say the U.S. should send ground troops to Iraq or Syria to fight ISIS. At the same time, 6-in-10 disapprove of the President's handling of terrorism and 68% say America's military response to the terrorist group thus far has not been aggressive enough.

CNN/ORC Poll conducted says 53% of Americans say the U.S. should send ground troops to Iraq or Syria to fight ISIS, Dec. 6 2015
CNN/ORC Poll conducted says 53% of Americans say the U.S. should send ground troops to Iraq or Syria to fight ISIS, Dec. 6 2015

Overall, 60% say the U.S. military action against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria is going badly, that's actually an improvement since October, when 67% said things were going poorly.

But the improvement here comes entirely among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Among that group, 57% now say things are going well against ISIS, up from 43% in October, while the share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say things are going well has held steady at 19%.

Majorities across party lines feel the U.S. military response to ISIS hasn't been aggressive enough, including 52% of Democrats, 66% of independents and 90% of Republicans. Still, there are broad partisan gaps on sending ground troops to fight ISIS, on whether the U.S. ought to take a leading role in solving international problems and on whether to allow Syrian refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.

The broadest gap comes on refugees. Overall, 38% of Americans say the U.S. should allow refugees from Syria to seek asylum, 61% say they should not be allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaners, 60% think Syrian refugees should be allowed to seek asylum in the U.S., just 17% of Republicans and Republican-leaners agree.

On ground troops, 36% of leaned Democrats think the United States should send ground troops into combat operations against ISIS forces in Iraq or Syria, compared with 69% of leaned Republicans.

While most Americans are reticent for the country to take a leading role on international issues, isolationist sentiment has faded since last fall. More now say the U.S. should take the leading role among all other countries in the world in trying to solve international problems (45% now compared with 39% in September 2014).

Still there's a broad partisan gap on the question. While most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the U.S. should not take the lead role in solving international problems (62%) a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaners take the opposite view (54%).

Disapproval of Obama's handling of terrorism has increased 9 points since May to 60%, while his overall approval rating has held roughly steady for several months. It currently stands at 45%.

About two-thirds say they disapprove of his handling of ISIS (64%), about the same as in August and May. More say President George W. Bush's policies are to blame for the current problems in Iraq than think Obama's policies are to blame, with 42% saying Bush's policies were at fault, 39% Obama's.

According to the poll, conducted before the deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, carried out by a couple which may have been inspired by ISIS, most Americans (81%) said they thought that terrorists associated with ISIS who had the resources to launch a major terrorist attack were currently in the U.S., up from 76% who thought so in May and 71% who felt that way in September 2014 around the time the U.S. began airstrikes against ISIS.

A smaller majority, 61%, said they thought it was very or somewhat likely that there would be acts of terrorism in the U.S. over the next several weeks.

The CNN/ORC Poll was conducted by telephone between November 27-December 1 among a random national sample of 1,020 adults. For results among all adults, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/06/politics/isis-obama-poll/index.html

[brice1967]

No ground troops.  If special forces and our allies can't figure this out, we nee to rethink everything we are doing.

[ajadamama]

Well Donald Trump has the ultimate solution....Dont let any muslims into the country....I guess he must have been sliding in the polls so had to say something to get them up again?

[hrsepwrguy]

Well you got me there Mike, anything short of using nuke's and to be honest I am not a fan of sending in ground troops, if someone could show me a plan that would work without sending them in, I would be all for it. What we are doing now is not working and under current policy we will never to be able to keep them out, so we really need to do something different if we want to protect ourselves.

[mikesimon]

"...I say do whatever it takes to totally destroy them ..."

Then I must assume that nuclear weapons are an option - yes?

[clement4now]

Yes, the President would need congressional authorization to declare war, which hasn't happened yet. He'll never consider utilizing WPR because of his stance against ground troops, and his insistence that his current strategy is 'comprehensive and working', among other reasons.  We are combating ISIS via airstrikes, but I believe that boots on the ground would help bolster our assault efforts. Ground troops are imperative for gathering intel and verifying legitimate targets ~we need to hit them at their core where they reside and converge.  Until we are economically more stable and have the resources to keep track of the masses, a moratorium on immigration and visa's should be seriously considered and implemented.    

[desrt]

Foreign policy based on opinion polls. This should go well. 100% of me is sure 99% of Americans have neither access to the facts nor the interest to go figure them out to make an informed decision on foreign policy.

[mikesimon]

I agree with not sending in ground troops. That is a recipe for disaster.

[hrsepwrguy]

If we let them thrive in other parts of the world, they will never stop trying to attack US soil, if you think we can keep them out your high. I say do whatever it takes to totally destroy them

[specialmom]

I actually agree.  I am not sure what an assault on ISIS with ground troops would look like  and think that working the intelligence in the US about 'homegrowns' as you call them and keeping others out of the US makes more sense.  I can't lie---  I like the idea of eradicating ISIS but am not sure that is realistic.  I don't mind following up on leads internationally of ISIS groups in conjunction with other nations but ground troops and war, ugh.

Wish there was a way to 'unplug' isis.  Media and internet coverage spurs activity and gives into the terror.  If stories weren't covered 24/7 to such massive extent, would it take away the weapon of fear that terrorists use?  Just a thought.  I know we need to be 'in the know' but by the same token, it feeds the problem.

[ajadamama]

I guess I am in the minority again . But doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is nonsensical to me. Im remembering Iraq here. So many different factions over there and the cowards hide behind the womens skirts so how do we differentiate them I ask. I wish it was as easy as going over there and wiping them out, but its not. I say shore up the loopholes of them coming here and run down on the ones that are already here that we do not know about. We have to worry about our own home growns. We got our hands full with that task. I think people are letting their fear outweigh their common sense and the rhetoric involved as a result of it being an election year is making it all worse. Did congress ever vote to declare war or did I miss that one? Far as I remember, they refuse to put their name on a vote. That might be the first order of the day?

[clement4now]

I agree, let's get this goin' already. ISIS attacks innocent, unarmed people, who are taken completely unaware ~ they're cowards.  Time to Eradicate!