{"id":586304,"date":"2026-04-15T19:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/586304\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T19:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:39:12","slug":"5-takeaways-from-recent-iran-polls-that-look-increasingly-grim-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/586304\/","title":{"rendered":"5 takeaways from recent Iran polls that look increasingly grim for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump in a new interview<\/a> airing Wednesday said the Iran war was \u201cvery close to over.\u201d (Take that for what it\u2019s worth, though, since it\u2019s been five weeks since he said it was \u201cvery complete<\/a>.\u201d)\n <\/p>\n

\n He also made arguably his most extensive case to date that the war has been worth the spike in energy prices and the stock market volatility. He said it was all about stopping Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo stop that, it was certainly worthwhile,\u201d Trump told Fox Business Network, arguing oil prices haven\u2019t risen as much as he thought they might.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think we\u2019re doing very well,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd maybe people assume we\u2019re going to win this thing pretty soon. We\u2019ve beaten them militarily, totally.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But this is a rosy view of the situation that doesn\u2019t match Americans\u2019 perceptions.\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, the war is getting more unpopular over time. And as we\u2019ve gotten more extensive polling, we learning more about why that is.\n <\/p>\n

\n Here are a few key points on that front.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Trump has declared the war is close to being over and a success, Americans don\u2019t see it that way. And they certainly don\u2019t see it as a strategic success.\n <\/p>\n

\n A CBS News-YouGov poll<\/a> over the weekend showed 36% said the military operations were successful. Another 31% said it was too soon to say, while 33% said they were not successful.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Americans were even less sold on the strategic side of things. Just 25% said the war was a strategic success \u2014 far less than the 42% who deemed it a failure.\n <\/p>\n

\n And when it comes to key objectives, Americans overwhelmingly don\u2019t see them being met:\n <\/p>\n

Just 7% said Iran\u2019s leaders are more pro-US now (despite Trump claiming that Iran has a \u201cnew regime\u201d that is \u201cpretty reasonable.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Just 8% said the war has prevented Tehran from threatening other countries (despite Trump saying the war \u201cstopped\u201d Iran from taking over or taking out the Middle East.)<\/p>\n

And just 11% said it has permanently stopped Iran\u2019s nuclear program (despite Trump saying that\u2019s the No. 1 goal and having said his June strikes in Iran \u201cobliterated\u201d its nuclear facilities.)<\/p>\n

\n Even Trump might concede that last one is a work in progress. But the other key point is that Americans just don\u2019t think the war is going to accomplish it.\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, they don\u2019t even think the war has been a net positive on that front.\n <\/p>\n

\n A recent Pew Research Center poll<\/a> showed only 27% of Americans said the war would ultimately make Iran\u2019s development of a nuke \u201cless likely.\u201d That\u2019s the same as the 27% who viewed it as \u201cmore likely.\u201d (Another 4 in 10 were neutral.)\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s pitch, as he laid it out in the Fox Business interview, was that today\u2019s costs will be worth the long-term benefits.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Americans aren\u2019t just worried about the short-term economic costs; they also don\u2019t see the long-term security payoff.\n <\/p>\n

\n A new Ipsos poll<\/a> this week showed 51% said the benefits of the war wouldn\u2019t be worth the costs, compared to just 24% who said they would be. (The rest were neutral.)\n <\/p>\n

\n It also asked whether the war would make US national security better or worse \u201cover the long run.\u201d Just 26% said it would improve national security, while 41% said it would actually make it worse.\n <\/p>\n

\n And a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll<\/a> showed similar skepticism.\n <\/p>\n

\n Only about 3 in 10 Americans said the war would make the world \u201cmore stable,\u201d compared to half who disagreed.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite self-identified MAGA supporters backing this war, evidence is building that Trump\u2019s base, defined more broadly, is quite skeptical<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n In many polls, 20% or 25% of Republicans and Trump voters generally disapprove of Trump\u2019s handling of the war. But there\u2019s also the mushy middle. These people don\u2019t outright oppose the war, but don\u2019t really see the point, either.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Ipsos poll showed just 57% of Republicans thought the war would improve US national security over the long run, and just 55% said the cost-benefit analysis would be worth it.\n <\/p>\n

\n Similarly, the CBS poll showed just 56% of Republicans said the war has been successful in terms of strategic interests.\n <\/p>\n

\n In both cases, most of the rest chose a middle-ground option. A huge chunk of Trump\u2019s base is clearly not bought in.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even as Trump has leaned increasingly into a more militaristic and interventionist foreign policy, Americans have less confidence in him to carry that out.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Pew poll features some pretty staggering charts<\/a> and numbers:\n <\/p>\n

The percentage of Americans who are not confident that Trump will make good decisions on Iran has increased from 50% during the 2024 campaign to 56% after the June strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities to 64% in March.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen similar increases when it comes to the war in Ukraine and dealing with China.<\/p>\n

Only 66% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are at least \u201csomewhat\u201d confident in Trump\u2019s handling of Iran.<\/p>\n

\n Similarly, the CBS poll showed just 23% of Americans had \u201ca lot\u201d of confidence in Trump to make the right decisions about Iran. Another 18% had \u201csome,\u201d while about 6 in 10 had \u201cnot much\u201d or \u201cnone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Perhaps most politically troubling for Trump and the GOP ahead of the midterms is inflation, which just jumped amid the oil shock<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Americans were already down on Trump on that issue \u2014 and that\u2019s worsened for him since the war started. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of his handling of inflation has been at 67%<\/a>, 68%<\/a>, 69%<\/a> and 71%<\/a> in recent polls.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s pretty rare that 7 in 10 Americans agree on anything, but Trump\u2019s failure on inflation is now one of them.\n <\/p>\n

\n And it appears to be bleeding into the president\u2019s overall number on the economy. A CNN poll<\/a> two weeks ago showed his approval rating on that issue dropping to 31% \u2014 lower than it ever was for either himself or Joe Biden.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump in a new interview airing Wednesday said the Iran war was \u201cvery close to over.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-586304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}