Sixty-two percent of likely voters view NATO favorably, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll conducted July 12-14. That's up from 59% in March. Sounds like a win for the alliance.
Except the same poll found that only 30% of Americans believe other NATO member countries actually contribute their fair share to the alliance. Forty-six percent say they don't.
The survey of 1,083 likely voters, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, paints a picture that Donald Trump has been sketching for the better part of a decade. Americans like the idea of NATO. They just don't think anyone else is picking up the check.
The numbers get worse for NATO cheerleaders the deeper you go. When asked whether Americans get a good return on their NATO investment, only 32% said yes. Forty-seven percent said no. Twenty-one percent weren't sure — which, given how much we spend, is its own kind of answer.
The partisan splits tell the real story. Among Republicans, 61% say Americans are not getting a good return on NATO spending. Only 20% of Republicans say they are. Independents lean the same direction — 45% say no good return, versus 33% who say yes. Even among Democrats, 36% concede that NATO isn't delivering value for American taxpayers. That's more than one in three members of the party that spent four years calling Trump a Russian asset for asking the same question.
On the burden-sharing question, the pattern holds. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans say other NATO countries are not contributing their fair share. Forty-eight percent of independents agree. Among Democrats, 31% say the same — meaning nearly a third of the left's own voters side with Trump's position on allied freeloading.
The demographic breakdowns add texture. Men are more skeptical than women — 49% of men say other countries don't contribute fairly, compared to 43% of women. Voters over 65 are the most hawkish on the issue, with 51% saying NATO allies are underpaying. And among self-identified conservatives, only 15% hold a "very favorable" view of the alliance, compared to 53% of liberals.
Perhaps the starkest number: only 16% of 2024 Trump voters believe NATO burden-sharing is fair. Among 2024 Harris voters, that number is 46%. Even within the coalition that supposedly champions international alliances, fewer than half think the current arrangement is equitable.
The favorability numbers themselves deserve a second look. Yes, 62% is a healthy topline. But only 29% hold a "very favorable" view. The rest — the majority of that 62% — are in the "somewhat favorable" camp, which in polling terms is the equivalent of saying "sure, I guess" when someone asks if you like your neighbor's new fence. It's not opposition, but it's not enthusiasm either.
Trump spent his first term getting called every name in the book for pressuring NATO allies to meet the 2% GDP defense spending target that they themselves agreed to. The foreign policy establishment treated it like an act of sabotage. European leaders acted wounded. Cable news panels asked whether Trump was "destroying the Western alliance."
The Rasmussen data suggests that 46% of American voters — a plurality — were already there. They didn't need Trump to tell them the arrangement was lopsided. They could read a budget.
Americans support NATO the way they support the idea of splitting a dinner check evenly — right up until they notice they ordered a salad and everyone else had the steak.