Half of President Donald Trump’s MAGA base thought Iran’s war was worth its economic costs in May. Now, just a little more than a third do.
That precipitous, 13-point drop in just two months, according to a new POLITICO Poll, reveals how the president’s most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.’ involvement in the war.
Additionally, 37 percent of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say the U.S. should continue its involvement only if it doesn’t increase costs, up from 29 percent who said the same in May, according to the survey, conducted by independent polling firm Public First. Nearly 1 in 5 MAGA voters believe that the U.S. should end its war in Iran, regardless of the costs.
That flagging support among the president’s most loyal supporters is the clearest sign that Americans’ patience is wearing thin as the economy continues to dominate as voters’ top concern heading into a critical midterm cycle.
But Trump on Monday gave little indication that he was looking for a quick end to the war. The U.S. military has pounded Iran for the last two weeks, and speaking to reporters on Tuesday the president claimed that Iranian officials “want to desperately meet” but that “until they are ready to meet in a meaningful way we have no interest in even talking.”
The White House is “at a maximum level of frustration right now, and I was told by very senior people that the president is now fully aware that the only way to the victory that he wants is completely politically impossible. The American people just will not support the kind of escalation it would take at this point,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “We’ve got more dead Americans and a politically impossible situation.”
This article is part of an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas.
You can find new surveys and analysis each month at politico.com/poll.
Have questions or comments? Ideas for future surveys? Email us at [email protected].
This souring of the president’s base comes amid renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, which have been conducting tit-for-tat strikes after the president earlier this month declared a tentative peace agreement between the two countries “over.” Two U.S. servicemembers were killed in Jordan this weekend and gas prices have climbed above $4 per gallon, underscoring the war’s impact at home.
The mood among White House staff and their outside allies is grim as the president grapples with finding a path out of an unpopular and expensive war three months from a midterm election expected to turn on cost of living issues.
The president was expected to spend the year on a victory tour on affordability issues, touting his popular tax cuts, Trump accounts for newborns and lower drug prices. Instead, a domestic travel schedule has been pocked by visits to Dover Air Force Base to oversee the dignified transfer of the remains of more than a dozen dead soldiers, and he has during his campaign-style rallies been forced to time and again argue to the American people that the price of war — most salient to higher prices at the pump — was worth ending Iran’s nuclear program.
White House aides contend that price bumps are temporary and will quickly return to pre-war levels either when the war ends or when the U.S. has degraded Iran’s military capabilities to the point that it can no longer stem the flow of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
“What matters most to the American people is having a Commander in Chief who takes bold action to keep them safe, which is exactly what President Trump is doing,” said White House spokesperson Olivia Wales. “The President does not make national security decisions based on fluid opinion polls, but on the best interests of the American people.”
Still, the latest polling shows that non-MAGA Trump voters are even more down on the war, with only 21 percent believing it is worth higher costs, while 28 percent say that the U.S. shouldn’t continue the war regardless of costs.
And the results show the president’s voters are broadly comfortable blaming the war for higher prices. When asked why gas prices have increased since the president took office, the majority of respondents blamed the conflict, including 57 percent of MAGA voters and 63 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters.
No other cause — from seasonal demand to environmental regulations limiting drilling — crested 25 percent for the core MAGA group. Those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, also blamed the president’s poor handling of the economy and his tariffs, at 55 percent and 52 percent, respectively, for the rise in costs.
Trump’s 2024 supporters also are split on whether gas prices would have gone up more, less or the same under a Democratic president compared with now — another indication that Americans are more willing to assign blame to Trump for the state of the economy. Equal shares of Trump voters say that prices would’ve gone up more under a Democrat (34 percent) and that prices would have gone up the same (35 percent). A notable 20 percent believe prices have gone up more under Trump.
Prominent Republicans, including strategists in key races, have spent the last several months warning about the impact of backlash to the Iran war on their chances of holding the House and the Senate, with frustrations around the war playing out in competitive races across the country.
“This shows that as unpopular as the first round of war was from February to early summer, this second round is even more ridiculous,” said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine. “The American people quite simply do not get it, do not understand why we are in this war, and, yes, President Trump is king of the Republican Party. Yes, the president can do a lot and has a lot of latitude with his own supporters, but kings are not invulnerable from political reality.”
But Trump on Tuesday said he wasn’t concerned.
“They won’t have any impact on me. I’m just here to do the right thing. I don’t view it as, gee, we’re having an election in a period of time. You know, everyone says, oh, I’m doing something before — no, the election — I can’t think about that having to do with this,” Trump said.