56% Favor Bringing Troops Home From Afghanistan Within A Year
Voters feel more strongly than ever that U.S. troops should be brought home from Afghanistan right away or a timetable should be set to bring them back within a year.
A new Rasmussen Reports nation telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely U.S. Voters now favor the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, the highest level of support to date. Twenty-one percent (21%) more support the establishment of a firm timetable to bring the troops home within a year.
The combined total of 56% is up four points from the beginning of March, up 13 points from 43% last September, and up 19 points from September 2009.
Thirty percent (30%) of voters still oppose the creation of any kind of timetable for withdrawal and 15% remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Members of President Obama’s party remain the strongest supporters of bringing the troops home. Seventy percent (70%) of Democrats favor either immediate withdrawal or the creation of a firm timetable for withdrawal within a year. That view is shared by most unaffiliated voters (54%) and a growing number of Republicans (42%).
This is the first Rasmussen Reports survey on Afghanistan since the killing of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the al Qaeda terrorist organization. President Bush launched the war against Afghanistan in October 2001 because the Afghani government continued to harbor al Qaeda after the 9/11 terorrist attacks. Afghanistan is now America’s longest running war. Full withdrawal of U.S. troops is expected to take until 2014.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on May 5-6, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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