During Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s contentious appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the many issues that led to partisan clashes was the question of public support for the war with Iran. For much of the hearing, that meant watching him accuse Democratic officials of “clouding the mind” of Americans by saying things he disagrees with.
But in one especially memorable exchange with Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the Pentagon chief stopped making excuses for the war’s unpopularity and started saying the war actually enjoys broad public backing.
“I believe we do have the support of the American people,” he told the senator, adding, “The American people are quite smart. They understand and see through spin.”
As it turns out, the second part of that quote was a lot more accurate than the first.
Over the last several decades, there’s been a relatively consistent trend in U.S. public opinion: Americans tend to broadly support military conflicts at the outset, but attitudes turn negative as wars drag on. The war in Iran is unusual in that it was unpopular at the outset and, two months later, it enjoys even less support, Hegseth’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The Washington Post reported on its latest national survey:
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President Donald Trump’s war in Iran is as unpopular among Americans as the Iraq War during the year of peak violence in 2006 and the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, amid growing economic pain and fears of terrorism as a result of the military campaign. […]
The polling numbers indicate a broadly unpopular war effort and growing economic fallout at a time when the White House has been trying to convince Americans that they are better off under Trump than under Democrats.
To be sure, a variety of recent polls have made it abundantly clear that this is an unpopular war, but the Post-ABC-Ipsos survey was of particular interest because of the historical context.
Just two months after Donald Trump launched operations in Iran, 61% of Americans believe the mission was a mistake. George W. Bush’s war in Iraq reached similar levels of opposition, but it took three years, not two months.
What’s more, as the Post’s article emphasized, it took six years for American opposition to the war in Vietnam to reach 61% — and that was during an era in which there was a military draft and casualty rates that were far worse than they are now.
The latest data shows a predictable partisan gap, and with roughly 4 in 5 Republican voters sticking to the position that the war with Iran was the right choice, it’s possible that many GOP officials will be prepared to overlook the overall polling landscape.
But looking ahead, the White House and its allies should probably keep in mind that in the 2026 midterm elections, it won’t just be Republican voters casting ballots.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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