Poll: Trump Still Hasn’t Sold Americans On Iran

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.”

A 41 percent plurality of Americans say Trump does not have a plan for resolving the conflict with Iran, virtually the same as last month. And even as the president has claimed victory and suggested the war may be winding down, just 15 percent of respondents say he has achieved his goals for intervening. Forty percent say Trump will either never achieve his goals in Iran or doesn’t have explicit goals at all.

The White House said that the Trump administration is focused on both the ongoing Iran conflict and Americans’ affordability concerns.

“While the U.S. military and the president’s diplomatic team continue to make progress towards securing a deal with Iran and resolving temporary disruptions in energy markets, the rest of the administration continues to implement the president’s affordability and growth agenda on the home front,” spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

“Once short-term disruptions from Operation Epic Fury are behind us, Americans can count on more economic progress in store thanks to this Administration,” Desai said.

More than a quarter of Americans — 27 percent — say they think Trump has a plan for resolving the conflict with Iran, while 41 percent say he does not have one. A third group, making up 15 percent of Americans, say they believe Trump has no plan but they trust that his actions will resolve the conflict.

Trump has largely retained support for the war among his supporters. Still, more than a third of Trump voters say he doesn’t have a plan, though many trust his actions will resolve the conflict anyway. Forty-five percent of Trump voters say that he has not accomplished his goals, though they expect he will.

Their responses reveal their strong confidence in the president, while also suggesting an awareness that the war could extend beyond the four- to six-week timeline the administration initially indicated.

Only 15 percent of Americans say Trump has achieved his goals in the war, while another 25 percent say they believe he will achieve his goals but has not yet done so. Roughly 4 in 10 believe Trump will never achieve his goals or has no goals at all.

The president has offered shifting rationales for the war and promised as recently as this week that the conflict was close to ending: “I think it can be over very soon. If they’re smart, it will end soon,” he said on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria Bartiromo,” referring to Iranian negotiators.

He also said, when asked whether he thought oil and gas prices would come down before the midterms, that prices may be “a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” doing little to assuage Republicans’ concerns that high costs will ease before November. Later, in a separate interview, Trump said he believes gas prices will be “much lower” before the midterms. “They said I expect oil to be high at the midterms, I don't expect that, I think that we will be somewhere around where we were, maybe even lower.”

The future of negotiations remains uncertain as the conflict stretches to its seventh week. After peace talks ended without a deal, Trump has escalated pressure on Tehran in recent days, ordering a blockade of Iranian ports, a move that risks putting further pressure on gas prices. Republicans in Washington have largely remained aligned with Trump publicly, but there are growing concerns that a prolonged conflict could alienate war-weary voters within the party.

The Strait of Hormuz reopened for commercial traffic on Friday, Trump and a top Iranian official announced, a move that sent oil prices plunging.

The war has proven to be as much of a messaging challenge as it is a policy problem for the GOP, with voters in both parties consistently — including in the April POLITICO Poll — listing cost of living concerns as their top issue heading into the midterms.

“I think the number one messaging problem has been that every day we're told it's going to end tomorrow, and we're now nearly two months into that promise,” said Roe, the Michigan-based strategist.

“I think most elected Republicans are still optimistic that this thing is going to be resolved quickly, but I think the biggest failure is telling us it's going to be over tomorrow every day.”