Poll Two Out Three Americans Dont Believe Obama has Clear Plan Deal Isis

A new poll out this week found that roughly two-thirds of Americans didn’t think President Obama had a clear plan for handling ISIS. The results painted a picture of widespread skepticism more than a year into the U.S. bombing campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria.

The survey, conducted in mid-April, showed just 32 percent of respondents believed the White House strategy was on solid ground. That left a solid majority convinced the administration was winging it against an enemy that continued to control large stretches of territory and carry out attacks abroad. Older voters and Republicans drove much of the doubt, though independents weren’t far behind.

Public frustration had been building for months. ISIS videos of executions and the group’s rapid expansion in 2014 had already shifted the conversation in Washington, yet repeated assurances from the Pentagon and State Department failed to move the needle with many people watching from home. By spring 2016, the sense that the U.S. lacked a coherent endgame appeared to have hardened into a settled view for most.

Critics on Capitol Hill were quick to seize on the numbers as proof the president needed a sharper shift in tactics. Supporters countered that the public rarely grasped the limits of American power in the region and that steady pressure was already containing the threat. Either way, the poll underscored how little room Obama had left to change minds before leaving office.

With the 2016 election heating up, the findings handed Republican candidates fresh ammunition on foreign policy. Democratic hopefuls largely avoided the topic, aware that many of their own voters shared the broader pessimism about the current approach.