Daniella Garcia and Robert Montani both think it is past time for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. But the two Pennsylvanians diverge on how much blame to put on President Biden for the messy exit.

Ms. Garcia, a 49-year-old customer-service manager from South Philadelphia who voted for Mr. Biden, said the president “got stuck with a lot of it” and “did the best with the information he had.” Mr. Montani, 60, a retired financial adviser from Valley Forge who didn’t cast a vote for president in 2020, said Mr. Biden “hasn’t come out and explained or defended or taken responsibility for what appears to be a logistical disaster.”

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Their comments reflect the mixed feelings of many Americans as they follow what has quickly become the greatest foreign-policy challenge of Mr. Biden’s presidency. Interviews conducted both before and after Thursday’s deadly bombing with more than two dozen Americans in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two states pivotal to Mr. Biden’s election victory, captured broad support for leaving Afghanistan, but more mixed views on the exit itself. Many of the responses fell along party lines.

A CBS News/YouGov survey taken Aug. 18-20 found that while 63% of adults backed the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, 70% thought the removal should have been handled better. (No results have been released from any national surveys conducted after Thursday’s bombing.) The unruly Afghanistan exit comes as Mr. Biden’s administration is already battling with rising Covid-19 cases and has drawn criticism of his judgment and leadership from Republicans and some fellow Democrats.

Some people said they weren’t following the situation closely, and others made clear that Afghanistan wasn’t their top priority. “I’m not worried about it. I’m trying to get the U.S. going—and out of Covid,” said Jackie Strong of St. Marys, Ga. A retired teacher’s aide, Ms. Strong said Mr. Biden, whom she supports, was “doing the best he can do” in Afghanistan.

President Biden praised the fallen soldiers as heroes at the White House on Thursday.

Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Since his 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden has pitched himself as an experienced and empathetic leader, seeking to present a steady contrast to the unpredictable policy-making of former President Donald Trump. The deadly Afghanistan exit poses a threat to that image, political operatives in both parties say, and could distract from his priorities: battling a new wave of Covid-19 infections and advancing new spending proposals to address infrastructure and poverty.

The president’s advisers argue that leaving Afghanistan is broadly popular, and Democrats maintain that the economy and Covid-19 will be the leading issues in next year’s midterm elections. Democrats hold a narrow majority in the House and control the evenly divided Senate, putting Mr. Biden’s party at risk of losing legislative power in next year’s elections.

Mr. Biden spoke from the White House on Thursday to address the attack, which U.S. officials attributed to Islamic State’s regional affiliate. He praised the fallen soldiers as heroes, said the evacuation mission would continue and promised to retaliate. He also again defended his decision to exit, saying it was “time to end a 20-year war.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the public agrees “with the president’s decision that it would have been unjust and not in our interest to commit American troops to more intense fighting.”

Some Americans interviewed said the president’s handling of Afghanistan hadn’t changed their views on his leadership abilities.

“He’s still just an empathetic person,” said Serena Sunflowers, a server and gig-economy worker in St. Marys, who added that she thought Mr. Biden was showing that he identified with families of troops who hopefully would get to come home. “If my husband was there right now, and just got pulled out, I’d be so happy about it,” she said.

Ms. Sunflowers, a Democrat, said she didn’t blame Mr. Biden for the carnage in Afghanistan. “We know who started it and who didn’t,” she said of the war, noting that the effort had occupied four American presidents.

Marvin McKinney, a retired truck driver from Kingsland, Ga., who supported Mr. Trump in 2020, agreed that the failure to leave Afghanistan in an orderly fashion was likely a result of decades of botched American foreign policy. “The American people are to blame because we elected the people who made these decisions,” Mr. McKinney said.

Advisers to President Biden argue that leaving Afghanistan is broadly popular. A military aircraft took off from the airport in Kabul on Friday.

Photo: -/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Joseph Ferrell, 32, a real-estate agent from Springfield, Pa., who voted for Mr. Trump, said the situation in Afghanistan was “horrible.”

“There should be an exit, but you have to come up with a plan,” he said. He also argued that Mr. Biden shouldn’t be talking about issues like infrastructure right now, asking, “Why are you worried about the roads?”

An NBC News poll conducted Aug. 14-17 showed Mr. Biden’s approval ratings falling to 49% among adults, down from 53% in April. Pollster Jeff Horwitt, a Democrat, attributed that decline to the re-emergence of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations around the country, as Mr. Biden’s approval for handing the pandemic dropped substantially since the spring. He also noted that most survey respondents, when asked an open-ended question about their top concerns, mentioned the pandemic or the economic recovery.

Strategists and lawmakers from both parties agreed that Afghanistan’s impact on the 2022 midterms was difficult to assess more than 14 months from Election Day.

“At the end of the day, the experts would tell you that domestic issues are the primary thing that voters will be looking at, but there’s no way to tell that when you’re this far out,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R., Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm. However, Mr. Emmer added that Mr. Biden’s handling of Afghanistan could become a bigger factor in Americans’ day-to-day concerns if they start to feel unsafe at home. “President Biden and the Democrats’ incompetence has actually put Americans in harm’s way and made us all less safe,” he said.

Crowds of people hoping to flee Afghanistan returned to Kabul’s international airport Friday after an explosion there Thursday left nearly 200 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members dead. Photo: EPA/Shutterstock The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

The NRCC’s counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, declined to comment.

Democrat Dan Sena, who served as the executive director of the DCCC in 2018, said voters will be most focused on jobs, the economy and health, describing Afghanistan as a “stumbling block to a larger narrative that they want to tell.” He cited the White House efforts on issues like infrastructure, saying, “They’ve got a lot to talk about.”

In Kingsland, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) met Friday with military families and service members such as Sergio Rodriguez, who served in Iraq. “I don’t think he had a choice,” Mr. Rodriguez said of Mr. Biden, noting that Mr. Trump had pledged to the Taliban that the U.S. would withdraw this year. He said he blamed the never-ending nature of the war for the deadly exit, which he said was heartbreaking for him as a veteran.

Said Mr. Rodriguez: “We need to just stand back and protect ourselves.”

Write to Catherine Lucey at catherine.lucey@wsj.com and Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson+1@wsj.com