Trump’s Popularity Hits Rock Bottom as Americans Turn Against Iran War

Just 33% of Americans approve of Donald Trump’s job performance, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday — a number that ties the lowest point of his entire political career, first reached in December 2017, and confirms the Iran war has become the defining drag on his second term.

The four-day survey found 64% disapproval, down from 35% approval in a poll that closed earlier this month and well below the just-under-50% approval Trump held when he returned to the White House last year. Reuters attributed the decline directly to the war Trump launched against Iran in February alongside Israel, which has paralyzed roughly a fifth of global oil trade and pushed US gasoline prices up nearly a third year-over-year, according to AAA figures cited by Al Jazeera’s coverage of the same poll.

The erosion has been steady rather than sudden. Reuters/Ipsos tracked Trump’s approval at 36% in late March, already a term-low at the time, with economic stewardship approval cratering to 29% — a figure Reuters noted was lower than any economic rating recorded for his predecessor, Joe Biden. Monday’s 33% figure means the slide has continued for five months rather than stabilizing, even as the war’s initial shock has given way to a longer, grinding conflict.

What’s striking in the new numbers is how little of the war’s toll Trump’s own base is being spared. Just one in five Americans overall — and only half of Republicans — think the war has been worth it, a remarkably weak endorsement from Trump’s own party for a conflict he chose to start. Eighty percent of respondents, including 71% of Republicans, believe US involvement in Iran will drag on for an extended period, against just 16% who expect resolution within weeks — a expectations gap that leaves little room for Trump’s periodic claims that a peace deal is imminent to restore lost approval quickly.

Trump has stuck to his framing regardless. At a rally in Garden City, New York, on Friday, he told supporters that paying “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline” is worth ensuring “a very evil country” doesn’t get a nuclear weapon — an argument that, per the poll, isn’t landing even with sympathetic audiences. Throughout the conflict he’s alternated between threatening further escalation and insisting a deal is close, a pattern that itself may be compounding the erosion by signaling uncertainty rather than resolution.

The political stakes extend well past Trump’s personal numbers. With November’s midterms approaching, gas prices and war fatigue are unsettling Republican confidence in ways that show up beyond the approval topline — the same erosion that’s fueling Democratic optimism about retaking the House and making a serious run at the Senate. Whether a diplomatic breakthrough arrives before voters do will likely determine whether 33% becomes Trump’s floor or just his latest stop on the way down.