A recent poll by the left-leaning veterans organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) found that when respondents were asked to choose between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump edged out Harris 51 percent to 49 percent.
If third candidates were included, Harris was slightly up at 43 percent to Trump’s 42 percent.
The poll, published October 30, was conducted among the group’s membership between October 9-15 and included 1,906 respondents.
The poll also showed that only 19 percent of respondents identified as Democrats, while 27 percent identified as Republicans, and the majority, 55 percent, considered themselves independent.
IAVA’s founder Paul Rieckhoff posted the statistic, adding: “If you wanna see a glaring reflection of how bad of a brand problem the Democrats have, check this out”:
The “overwhelming majority” of respondents had deployed directly to or in support of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; were mostly male; and between the ages of 35 and 64, “reflecting the population that served in the Post-9/11 conflicts,” an IAVA summary noted.
A retired U.S. Army colonel argued in the Federalist on Monday that many Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) veterans preferred Trump over Harris, due to her alignment with neoconservatives such as former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and generals who led wars during the GWOT, then subsequently retired from the military and “went deep into the military-industrial complex, and now endorse Harris and demean Trump.”
“To have the architects of those useless, endless wars now turn on the one president who really cared about not squandering our lives feels like an injustice. Many of us stood by those neocons — even defended them in our private lives against slanderous lies — and now they turn on us by opposing the one man who vows that these sorts of wars will end. It is painful and feels like a betrayal,” wrote the colonel, who went by the nom de plume Cynical Publius.
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