Representative Susan Wild, who won Stawnyczyj's district by less than 5,000 votes in 2022, said that courting the Ukrainian-American vote would be crucial. In the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania where Stawnyczyj lives and where the Republican and Democratic parties fight tooth-and-nail for control, the Ukrainian population exceeds 10% in some towns.ĭemocratic U.S. While the data does not provide information on the age of Americans in most states and congressional districts who identify as having Ukrainian ancestry, the bureau says about four-fifths of the overall Ukrainian-American population is of voting age. The Census Bureau produces estimates of the Ukrainian-American population based on an annual nationwide survey. Republicans and Democrats won about half of the districts each. The 13 congressional districts where the community is larger than or similar to the margins of victory in the midterms were identified in New York state, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Washington state, Connecticut, California and Colorado. Michigan has roughly 33,000 Ukrainian-Americans, more than Trump's 2016 margin of about 11,000 votes. In Pennsylvania, about 92,000 people identify as Ukrainian-American - more than double Trump's margin of victory here in 2016 of 44,000 votes, and also exceeding Biden's margin of 81,000 in 2020, according to the Reuters analysis. Republican candidates that have pledged to back Kyiv, including former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, have meanwhile failed to gain traction in opinion polls. Neither politician responded to requests for comments about the Ukraine war, nor did the Republican National Committee. He has repeatedly praised Putin in the past, calling him a "genius" after he invaded Ukraine last year.ĭeSantis, who is expected to launch a presidential bid next week, has criticized the Biden administration's "blank-check" funding for Kyiv and said it was not a vital national interest for America to become "further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia". They said they were less likely to vote for a candidate that didn't support Ukraine, with most ruling out a vote in either the primaries or the general election for Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the leading contenders for the Republican nomination.ĭuring a CNN town hall last week, Trump refused to say if he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia, when questioned about the conflict. The Ukrainian-Americans interviewed all said they felt angry - in some cases betrayed - by the Republican Party. Their reason: disinterest among top Republican lawmakers and some of the party's 2024 White House hopefuls in defending their ancestral homeland following Russia's invasion last year, a stance set in stark relief to President Biden's full-throated support of Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Stawnyczyj is one of many Ukrainian-Americans who plan to sit out the 2024 election or even vote Democrat for the first time, according to interviews with 22 Ukrainian-American activists, elected officials, community leaders and voters, as well as a dozen officials and strategists that interact with the community. In at least 13 congressional districts across the country, it exceeds or roughly matches the margin of victory by either party in the 2022 midterm elections. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, the size of the Ukrainian-American community outstrips Trump's margin of victory in 2016, according to the analysis. While the number of Americans who identify as being of Ukrainian descent is relatively small at about 1 million, they are densely distributed in a string of unusually competitive areas where their votes could potentially be decisive. The votes of Ukrainian-Americans - traditionally a Republican-leaning bloc - could have an outsize impact on the 2024 general election, according to some lawmakers, strategists and advocates, plus a Reuters analysis of U.S. "The way Trump is talking right now, getting into bed with Putin, there's no way I can support him," Stawnyczyj, a retired truck driver, told Reuters at his home in the Appalachian Mountains. He's also Ukrainian-American and can't stomach Trump's criticism of aid payments to war-torn Ukraine nor his habit of complimenting Vladimir Putin. Stawnyczyj is an official in the Republican Party in rural Carbon County, Pennsylvania. But he'll stay home on Election Day should Trump win his party's nomination to take on Joe Biden in 2024. On domestic policy, he gives the former president top marks. LEHIGHTON, Pennsylvania, May 20 (Reuters) - George Stawnyczyj voted for Donald Trump twice.
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