A majority supports President Biden’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11

Washington, DC, April 21, 2021

According to a new Ipsos KnowledgePanel poll, half of Americans believe that the U.S. will probably go back into Afghanistan in the future to deal with new threats and that the U.S. should bring home all of its troops from Afghanistan immediately.

Detailed Findings

1. Compared to 2012, fewer Americans agree that the U.S. should bring home all of its troops from Afghanistan immediately.

• The number of Americans who agree that the U.S should bring home all of its troops has decreased to 50% from 61% in 2012. Similar to 2012, support for this item remains highest among Democrats and Independents.

• Conversely, two in five agree that the U.S leaving Afghanistan now helps Al Qaeda (43%). A majority of Republicans hold this viewpoint (57%), compared to 45% of Independents and 33% of Democrats.
• Fifty-one percent believe the U.S will probably have to go back into Afghanistan in the future to deal with new threats. Older adults and Republicans are more likely to say this than younger adults.
• Americans are least likely to agree that keeping troops in Afghanistan is in the U.S.’s long-term interest (30%) and that the U.S. accomplished its goals with the war in Afghanistan (28%).

2. A majority of Americans support President Biden’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11 while a quarter opposes.

• Fifty-four percent support withdrawing all U.S troops from Afghanistan by September 11 with majorities across regions and generations expressing their support. A quarter opposes withdrawing troops (23%) and 22% are unsure.
• Attitudes are deeply divided along partisan lines with 73% of Democrats and 58% of Independents saying they support withdrawing all U.S. troops, while a third of Republicans say the same (35%).

Methodology

This Ipsos Poll is based on interviews conducted from April 16-18, 2021. A total of 1,017 interviews were completed. The margin of error on weighted data is +/- 3.3 percentage points for the full sample. The design effect for this study was 1.15.

The KnowledgePanel Omnibus using the KnowledgePanel™ is a national online omnibus service of Ipsos Public Affairs. KnowledgePanel is the largest commercially available online probability panel in the marketplace. The sample is truly projectable to the US population, which sets it apart from traditional “opt-in” or “convenience” panels.

• To recruit panel members, we use ABS (address-based sampling) as the primary methodology—a probability-based approach that includes cellphone-only households.
• For non-Internet households, we provide Internet access and a laptop for the completion of online surveys: Therefore, the sample is not limited to only those who already have Internet access.
• The representativeness of its sample—including hard-to-reach groups such as young adults, males and minorities—has been documented in numerous academic papers.

Each wave's KP Omnibus consists of 1,000 completed interviews. All respondents are 18 years of age or older, and approximately equal numbers of male and female adults are provided. All completed interviews are weighted to ensure accurate and reliable representation of the total US population, 18 years and older.

The raw data are weighted by a custom-designed computer program, which automatically develops a weighting factor for each respondent. This procedure employs several variables, including age, sex, education, race, household income, metropolitan/non-metropolitan status, and geographic region. Each interview is assigned a single weight derived from the relationship between the actual proportion of the population with its specific combination of age, sex, education, race and geographic characteristics and the proportion in our sample that week. Tabular results* show both weighted and unweighted bases for these demographic variables.

Because of the use of rigid and replicable sampling, fielding, and weighting procedures, all KP Omnibus studies are parallel to one another. This affords the opportunity to draw trend comparisons, as well as point-in-time analysis.

In addition to the standard breakdowns by sex, age, income and region, the following classification items have been obtained and are available to subscribers:

• Marital Status
• Employment Status
• Home Ownership
• Head of Household
• Race/Ethnicity
• Education
• Housing type
• Family Size/Composition

Optional panel profiled variables, such as Political Party ID and Voter Registration, are available upon a request at an additional fee.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, U.S., Public Affairs
Ipsos
+1 202 420 2025
[email protected]

Kate Silverstein
Media Relations Specialist, U.S., Public Affairs
Ipsos
+1 718 755-8829
[email protected]

About Ipsos

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Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. We serve more than 5000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.

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