An Iran war poll indicates just one in three Americans support the conflict, the lowest reading since its early weeks, with most respondents saying President Donald Trump has not clearly outlined U.S. objectives.
The nationwide survey, conducted online from Friday through Sunday, also showed the Republican president’s job approval edging up to 37 percent. That is a 3-point increase from last month, when his rating matched the lowest mark of his presidency.
Trump has cited shifting aims for the campaign, including aiding Iranians seeking to depose their leaders, disabling Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, and stopping Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. According to the poll, 69 percent of respondents, including about four in ten Republicans, said Trump has not clearly explained the goals of U.S. military involvement in Iran.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the president will not base decisions on what she called fluid opinion polls. She reiterated Trump’s determination to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. “What matters most to the American people is having a commander in chief who takes bold action to keep them safe,” Wales said.
Support for the operation has remained below 40 percent since the United States and Israel began strikes on February 28. That stands in contrast to the opening phases of other recent conflicts.
While contexts differed, the Iraq war that began in 2003 drew support from roughly 70 percent of Americans in its early months. During the initial period of the Afghanistan war, which started in 2001 and ended in 2021, about 90 percent backed U.S. action, according to historical polling.
‘No idea’ why US at war
Public skepticism is weighing on Trump and Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections, when the party will defend narrow majorities in Congress.
“It’s not clear why we started a war with them. I have no idea,” said Alex Womack, a retired turbine repair specialist from Stockbridge, Georgia, who became a Republican in part because he approved of President George H.W. Bush’s handling of the 1991 Gulf War.
Womack, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of that conflict, said his support for Trump has waned due to the current war. “I don’t think he’s doing very well, personally,” he said.
So far, 18 American service members have been killed, while thousands have died in Iran and in Lebanon, where Iran-aligned fighters have clashed with Israeli forces.
The fighting has driven gasoline prices sharply higher, straining household budgets. The national average is just over 4 dollars a gallon, up from about 3 dollars before the war began on February 28.
“This puts pressure on the party in a myriad of ways, all of them bad,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former White House spokesman during the George W. Bush administration. “White House officials have been saying since January that they need to win economic arguments. It’s hard to win the economic arguments when you’re clearly focused on foreign policy.”
Independent voters in the latest survey said they favored the Democratic congressional candidate over the Republican by 36 percent to 20 percent. Independents also gave Democrats an edge on economic policy, the poll found.
Trump vowed to stay out of wars
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump pledged to keep the United States out of prolonged conflicts. He initially estimated the Iran war would last four to five weeks, and he has bristled at comparisons to other wars, including Vietnam, which spanned two decades and claimed the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. troops.
Rhyan Anderson, an independent from Fairburn, Georgia, who voted for Trump in 2024, said the president should prioritize domestic issues over aiding Israel or other allies. “My biggest thing is just focus on the people who are actually in the country,” said Anderson, who works two jobs in security and data collection and said he supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. “I know we have allies and things like that, but there’s a lot of people here that really need help.”
Since mid-March, the survey has asked whether respondents support or oppose military strikes on Iran. At that time, 37 percent said they supported the war.
That compared with 27 percent approval on the day the war began, when the survey also allowed respondents to say they were unsure, which 29 percent did.
Iran war poll methodology
The latest online, nationwide poll gathered responses from 1,246 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Trump has faced growing scrutiny over Iran policy since an earlier missile attack was intercepted, adding a fresh layer of pressure as public support for the conflict erodes.