Allowing Putin to continue his onslaught against a smaller democratic ally could be the straw that breaks Republican majorities in 2026.
T his year has seen a huge change in Republican voters’ attitudes towards Ukraine and Russia. In the past six months, the percentage of GOP voters who want the U.S. to send more military aid to Ukraine has increased by 21 points. The majority of both parties now favors stronger support for our democratic ally. Approximately 75 percent of both parties’ voters favor increased sanctions on Russia. Fewer than 10 percent of U.S. voters see Russian strongman Vladimir Putin positively, while over 60 percent view Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a positive light. And based on Russia’s ever-expanding nightly attacks on Ukrainian hospitals, schools, churches, and homes, not to mention its sending 19 military surveillance drones into Poland last week, this trend is likely going to intensify.
These massive shifts in public opinion come despite the estimated $1.2 billion the Kremlin spends annually on information warfare against the U.S. and our major allies. It is estimated that over half of that is directed against the U.S.A. Unfortunately, especially among the Kremlin’s target populations, it was initially effective. People like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others keep lying about Putin’s being a man of peace and the war’s being a result of NATO aggression.
But more Americans are now coming to understand that none of that is reality. The truth is being told by reporters and civilians’ cell phones on the front lines every day. Documented Russian war crimes, including widespread rape and torture, as well as Russia’s nightly mass bombings of civilian institutions that are nowhere near military installations — these are the reality. The other day, a Russian FPV drone operator flew his drone in the window of a Ukrainian family’s home and blew up a six-month-old in his crib. Americans, increasingly, are noticing.
They are increasingly noticing that the Ukrainian military continues to massively outperform. As the joke now goes, “What was the second most powerful army in the world is now the second most powerful army in Ukraine.” Russia’s much trumpeted spring-summer offensive this year, by which it hoped to prove the inevitability of its eventual victory, has completely failed. In one area, for example, Ukraine retook five times more territory than it lost last month. And, as always, Putin paid dearly for this failure with Russian forces. He has lost nearly 30,000 soldiers in August alone. Significantly weakening one of our major authoritarian adversaries with no loss of American soldiers is a victory for all who love freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. It is also a direct blow against the scourge of global terrorism.
Russia has long been the primary supporter and supplier of the world’s worst terrorist organizations via its “we will destroy Israel” proxy Iran. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis: Choose any bloodthirsty terrorist group, and it is likely Putin and his Kremlin mafia are supporting it, in one way or another. Americans, for the most part (looking at you, college campuses), hate terrorists. Thus, bowing down to Putin, the major supporter of the world’s worst terrorist groups, is not a good look for any U.S. leader.
The 2026 midterms are going to be challenging for the GOP, as they always are for the president’s party. The economy is softening, inflation is still a problem for many Americans, and the Big, Beautiful Bill is not overly popular. Going forward, tariff chaos is going to start costing American businesses and consumers more and more. The GOP should not want to give Democrats any more talking points for 2026.
Allowing Putin to continue his onslaught against a smaller democratic ally — killing its soldiers and civilians, kidnapping its children (some 20,000 so far) — could be the straw that breaks the GOP majorities in 2026. It would certainly be a powerful cudgel for Democrats in close races. If Russia attacks Poland or if one of the many terrorist groups it supports strikes the U.S. before the midterms, it could benefit Democrats if the Republican Party is seen as soft on Russia. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is still time to make U.S. policy in Ukraine a strength for the GOP in 2026.
GOP leaders and voters must turn their backs on the neo-isolationists who seek to repeat the failures of the past. This is not “Biden and Zelensky’s war,” as President Trump mistakenly asserted recently. This is 100 percent Vladimir Putin’s war. He could end it any day he wanted. But despite months of peace efforts by President Trump, it is now clear that Putin does not want peace. He wants Ukraine. And he will not stop there.
Not standing up to Hitler in the 1930s cost the world over 50 million war-related deaths in the 1940s. Since World War II, the Republican Party has led a muscular U.S. foreign policy that has prevented another global war for 80 years and counting. Were mistakes made? Absolutely. But “Peace through feebleness,” a la Joe Biden in Afghanistan, is a gold-plated invitation for the likes of Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, as well as for terrorists the world over. The party that keeps the peace via strength, not weakness, is in a much better political — not to mention moral — position. That can be, and in fact must be, the Republican Party.