These poll numbers were released earlier today by Rasmussen Reports -- "an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information."
86% Approve of Obama's Decision to Kill bin Laden
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Americans overwhelmingly endorse President Obama's decision to kill Osama bin Laden and don't believe a greater effort should have been made to bring the terrorist mastermind to trial.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 86% of American Adults approve of the president's decision authorizing the mission to kill bin Laden. Just five percent (5%) disapprove of the president's action, while nine percent (9%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here .)
Only 14% say the special operations forces involved in the weekend mission should have tried harder to capture bin Laden so that he could have been given a fair trial. Seventy-five percent (75%) disagree and say there was no need for the Navy SEALs to try harder to capture the man behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States and several other major terrorist incidents. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
Sixty-five percent (65%) of adults give the president good or excellent marks for the way he handled the hunt for bin Laden. Just 12% think Obama did a poor job in this area. For comparison's sake, only 37% of Likely U.S. Voters now give the president good or excellent grades for his response to the situation in Libya , while nearly as many (31%) think his performance has been poor.
The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on May 2-3, 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 .
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Americans say they have been following news reports about the death of bin Laden which the president announced late Sunday. That includes 49% who say they have been following Very Closely.
Republicans support the president's decision more than Democrats and adults not affiliated with either party do, but sizable majorities across all demographic categories think Obama made the right move.
Democrats believe more strongly than Republicans and unaffiliateds that more effort should have been made to bring bin Laden to trial.
Still, 86% of those in the president's party rate his handling of the hunt for bin Laden as good or excellent, a view shared by just 56% of Republicans and 54% of unaffiliated adults.
Americans were clearly in a celebratory mood as news of bin Laden's death became public Sunday night, according to Rasmussen Reports Twitter and Facebook traffic. But polling last fall found that only 23% of Americans think capturing or killing bin Laden will make the United States safer .
Eighty percent (80%) of voters said in a survey earlier this year that terrorism is now a bigger threat to the United States than traditional wars .
Even prior to the military operation that killed bin Laden, 84% of voters gave the U.S. military good or excellent marks for its performance , consistent with surveys for months.
Intelligence data that led to bin Laden appears to have come from the controversial interrogation techniques used during the George W. Bush years. But in April 2009, while a slight plurality of voters believed the United States did torture terrorism suspects, 58% were opposed to an investigation of how the Bush administration treated those suspects .
Voters also have strongly favored trying suspected terrorists by military tribunal rather than in U.S. courts and have opposed giving those suspects the rights of U.S. citizens when they are being tried.