Trump keeps claiming victory in Iran. Our new poll shows voters aren’t buying it.
A majority say the war is not in the national interest, and many lack confidence in the president’s goals — including some 2024 supporters.Seven weeks into the war with Iran, most American voters say President Donald Trump lacks a clear plan and many doubt that Trump is achieving his own goals in the war.
New results from The POLITICO Poll show that support for military action is weak — just 38 percent of Americans back the strikes — and views remain largely unchanged from the days following the joint U.S.-Israel strikes, even as the administration has now had weeks to make its case.
A majority of respondents say the war is not in the interests of the American people, and a plurality are still not confident that the president has clear objectives — including a notable chunk of his 2024 supporters.
Nearly half of all respondents also say the president has spent too much time focusing on international affairs rather than domestic issues, according to the survey conducted by Public First, including 29 percent of his own 2024 voters.
The findings suggest that Trump has made little progress in winning over the public on a conflict that has pulled him away from helping anxious Republicans sell their economic message ahead of November. He is now facing growing concerns that the war — and the ripple effect it has had on gas, oil and food prices — could undercut the GOP’s most critical midterm messaging.
“I think the biggest problem is, first, this war was not pre-sold,” said Michigan-based Republican strategist Jason Roe. “[Trump] campaigned against these kinds of policies and these kinds of actions and reversed himself on a dime, and so … the American people were not conditioned to prepare for this thing.”
