President Donald Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes Saturday on several nuclear facilities in Iran has divided Americans and exposed fault lines within the coalitions of both the parties, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
Among U.S. adults, 45% oppose the airstrikes, versus 38% who support them. An additional 18% of Americans said they neither support nor oppose the strikes, illustrating how fluid the situation is.
While this survey was in the field from Monday through Wednesday, Iran launched a retaliatory missile barrage at a U.S. military site in Qatar. Trump then announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, chastised both countries for appearing to break the terms and then congratulated them for stopping attacks. Meanwhile, questions still remain about the ultimate consequences of the U.S. strikes, including exactly what damage they did to Iran’s nuclear program.
Support for the airstrikes divided predictably along partisan lines. Among Democrats, 77% oppose the airstrikes, with 61% strongly opposed. In a near-mirror image, 78% of Republicans support the airstrikes, with 60% strongly supporting them.
Independents are much more divided, with 45% opposing the airstrikes, 21% supporting and 34% who neither support nor oppose the move — almost twice the share of the overall population who took the neutral position.
The lead-up to the strikes last week exposed a split in the Republican Party between those with isolationist tendencies in the MAGA wing of the GOP and those with more hawkish, traditionalist Republican Party foreign policy positions. A testy exchange between right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz illustrated the divide, with Carlson forcefully arguing that attacking Iran would betray the president’s “America First” promises.
But while there is a split among Republicans in the poll, it is an exact inversion of the public debate between prominent pro-Trump figures.
While all Republican factions support the airstrikes, respondents who identify with the MAGA movement are significantly more supportive of the strikes than those who identify as traditional Republicans. Though there are some high-profile dissenters on Iran within the MAGA movement, the rank and file of the movement is firmly in favor of the strikes.
Fully 84% of Republicans who identify with the MAGA movement support the strikes, including 70% who strongly support them. In contrast, 72% of Republicans who identify themselves more as supporters of the party support the strikes, with 49% strongly supporting them.
What happens next
While more Americans oppose the airstrikes than support them, a majority (60%) also support a continuation in military action if Iran’s nuclear program remains intact. Initial intelligence assessments indicate that the strikes only set Iran’s nuclear program back three to six months, though it will take more time to make a final assessment. Trump and his administration have pushed back against those conclusions.
Overall, 26% of Americans say that the U.S. should consider all options for future military action, including the use of ground troops. A slightly higher 34% say they support continued military operations, but only through airstrikes. The remainder of Americans (41%) believe the U.S. should not take further military action in Iran.
The question of how to proceed with military action in Iran also splits the Democratic coalition, with a large divide between those who identify themselves more as supporters of the party versus those who identify themselves more as supporters of the progressive movement.
Among progressives, 75% say the U.S. should not take any further military action in Iran. Meanwhile, supporters of the traditional wing of the Democratic Party are nearly evenly split, with 54% saying that no further action should be taken, and 45% supporting some degree of further action if Iran maintains its nuclear program. Nearly one-fifth — 19% — of traditional Democrats believe that the U.S. should consider all options, including the use of ground forces.
Tempering this support for continued military action in Iran is a deep concern about the conflict escalating into a broader regional conflict in the Middle East. A full 78% of Americans are very or somewhat concerned about the conflict escalating. This includes 55% of Republicans, 83% of independents and 95% of Democrats.
The role of Congress
Members of Congress from both parties have questioned the legality of Trump’s decision to launch the military strikes on Iran. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., called the strikes unconstitutional, and he had joined with Democrats to introduce a bipartisan resolution before the attacks to block such action without congressional authorization. (He later said that the cessation of hostilities after the strikes would remove the need for a vote on the resolution.)
A majority (60%) of Americans say that Trump should have received congressional authorization before launching the strikes.
While responses to this question were deeply divided along partisan lines, 19% of Republicans agreed that Trump should have received congressional approval first. And 92% of Democrats agreed with the need for authorization, as did 71% of independents.
The NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey was conducted online June 23-25 among a national sample of 5,448 adults ages 18 and over. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
