A new Daily Mail/JL Partners poll shows voters are increasingly dissatisfied with President Donald Trump’s handling of the ongoing war with Iran, while frustration over stubbornly high living costs continues to weigh heavily across the US.
The survey points to mounting unease over Trump’s second-term agenda, a warning sign for Republicans as the party heads into the final two months before the midterm elections.
Perhaps most striking, the discontent is no longer limited to Trump’s critics. It is now reaching into his loyal political base, exposing cracks among MAGA supporters who once appeared firmly united behind him.
According to the exclusive poll, more than four in ten voters who supported Trump in the 2024 election say he is not doing enough to tackle inflation or ease the cost-of-living crisis facing American households.
Those financial pressures have continued to climb, driven in part by the economic fallout from the Iran war and Trump’s aggressive tariff policies.
This week, the US military released dramatic new footage of its blistering bombardment of Iran’s coast, as Trump urged the country’s citizens to ‘rise up and fight.’
And it doesn’t appear peace is on the horizon anytime soon.
‘I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table, as ABC Fake News reported,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. ‘I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement.’
In the military footage, the US can be seen striking Iranian targets across a 300-mile stretch of coastline in the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump boasted that Tehran’s economy was collapsing.
‘I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,’ Trump continued. ‘They are just playing out the inevitable.’
But voters aren’t happy with the length of the conflict, that’s stretched into its seventh month.
Nearly half of US voters, or 49 percent, said they believe Trump was wrong to launch military action in Iran earlier this year.
Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to ‘rise up’ against the Islamic regime
US cruise missiles are launched at Iranian military targets along the Strait of Hormuz
While Iran has continued to harass civilian oil tankers, roughly 50,000 US troops have been deployed across the region to enforce Trump’s naval blockade and squeeze the regime back to the negotiating table
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The poll also found that Americans continue to hold dismal views of the war with Iran.
Just 25 percent of voters said they believe the US is ‘winning’ the war, according to the Daily Mail/JL Partners survey.
Support was split among party lines, however – with 52 percent of Republicans saying they believe the US is winning the war, compared to just 11 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of independent voters.
A total of 42 percent of voters – more than four in ten – said they believe Trump is ‘most responsible’ for the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
A much smaller 17 percent of voters blamed the Iranian government, while 9 percent blamed former US administrations.
Most shockingly, Americans said they would rather fork over more money for gas than send extra American troops to Iran
An eye-popping 46 percent of US voters said they would rather pay $5 per gallon gas prices than send more troops to Iran, compared to just 22 percent who said the opposite.
Among just Republicans, the split was nearly even – 38 percent preferred the higher gas costs, while 39 percent preferred sending more troops to Iran.
Average US gas prices remain elevated at more than $4 a gallon amid higher costs of crude oil due to the war and instability in the Strait of Hormuz.
Gas prices in August also shattered records, with averages surpassing $4 a gallon every day for the first time ever, according to AAA.
The high cost of living continues to be another major issue contributing to the drop off in approval rates.
Consumer prices have been creeping up over the last few months, leaving Americans stuck with stubbornly high inflation that has pushed up the cost of everything from groceries to home loans.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that consumer prices rose by 0.1 percent in July month over month, putting the annual CPI inflation rate at 3.4 percent, down a hair from the 3.5 percent figure in June.
The Daily Mail/JL Partners survey polled a nationally representative sample of more than one thousand registered US voters between the dates of August 28 and August 31, with a 3.1 percent margin of error.