Obama’s new war is popular among both Republicans and Democrats

Democrats and Republicans disagree on many foreign policy issues, as my colleague Zack Beauchamp wrote in June. But so far, polls have shown Americans fairly united in support of military action against ISIS. On Tuesday, a new Gallup poll found nearly the exact same percentage of Republicans and Democrats in support of the strikes in Iraq and Syria:

These results are similar to those of a recent Wall Street Journal / NBC News poll, which found that the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff seem to have galvanized American public opinion against ISIS. The poll found that 94 percent of the public had heard of the killings of the two Americans — a higher level of recognition than for any other news event the poll had asked about since 2009. The accompanying article, by Janet Hook and Carol Lee, provided one anecdote suggesting that the killings helped spur public support for action:

The news, in some cases, turned doves into hawks. "Come on! They are rounding up people and just killing them," said Sara Appleton, a 31-year-old Democrat in Austin who opposed the Iraq war and voted twice for Mr. Obama. "I think we should have intervened earlier."

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