Americans view of Russia is getting better in 2016 according to Gallup.
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way and not footnote it at the end. The study sample size was 1,021 with a 60% minimum cell phone sample. The margin of error is 4% at p>0.05 (95% confidence level).
With the statistics in mind, when we break this down by age and party affiliation from 2015 to 2016 something interesting happens.
If you are under the age of 30 favorability increases 15% and 8% if you are over 55 years old. However, the 30-55 age group saw a fall in favorability for Russia of 4%, right at the margin of error. I am not sure there is anything interesting to glean from this.
But when we look at party identification something interesting does happen. For democrats, warm feelings toward Russia go up 3% which is within the margin of error so it could be that democrats have not changed. For republicans, however, the favorability toward Russia goes up a whopping 10%. This is interesting because I wonder if that increase could be a result of the GOP standard bearer, Donald Trump, talking so favorably about Russia while campaigning.
The other finding here is that Americans feel Russia is less of a threat in 2016 as compared to 2015 by 10% (from 49% to 39%). I wonder why this is with all the saber rattling and all of the issues with Russia and the US in regards to Syria. It would seem that as we circle the possibility of a second cold war with Russia that the perceived threat would stay the same or go up.
Trump’s bromance with Putin may be one reasons some Americans find Russia less threatening this year. But keep in mind, that last year the shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea–wait, I thought this stuff didn’t happen anymore– was a lot fresher in folks minds.