Republicans are finally done defending the Iraq war.
GOP voters spent years applying a positive spin to the central part of George W. Bush’s legacy, but a poll released Friday revealed a significant shift in public opinion.
The key detail from the latest USA Today/Pew Research Center poll:
The biggest shift in attitudes toward the Iraq War came among Republicans and those who lean to the GOP. In 2011, 65% of them said the war had succeeded; now just 38% do. A double-digit gap between Republican and Democrat views in 2011 has now been largely erased.
But the poll showed that 52 percent of Republicans still believe it was the right decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Overall, 52 percent of Americans said that the U.S. has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Iraq — a change from 2011, when 56 percent said the U.S. had mostly succeeded.
