Twenty-seven percent. That is Donald Trump's approval rating among independent voters on the question of how he is handling the war with Iran, according to a YouGov poll conducted March 13–16. [1] Seventy percent of independents disapprove. The net among the voter bloc that decided the 2020 and 2024 elections is negative 43 points on the defining issue of his second term.

The YouGov tracker is not an outlier. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found just 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of Iran; 54 percent disapprove. [2] Reuters/Ipsos placed his overall approval at 40 percent — stable only because Republican support holds in the high 80s. [3] An iHeart/YouGov national poll was starker: 37 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove, net negative 20. [4]

Every aggregate confirms the direction. RealClearPolitics' average on military action in Iran is net-negative by 4.7 points. [5] Yahoo News/YouGov found 56 percent disapprove of Trump's Iran handling. [6] CNN's early-March poll found just 41 percent strongly favored overthrowing the Iranian government — the stated objective of the campaign. [7] Reuters reported on March 1 that one in four Americans backed U.S. strikes on Iran, with 56 percent saying Trump was too willing to use military force. [8]

The Independent Collapse

Presidents do not lose elections because their base abandons them. They lose because independents do.

The YouGov crosstabs show the mechanism. Between the March 6–9 and March 13–16 tracking periods, Trump's net approval on Iran fell almost entirely because of independents. [1] Republican approval held above 85 percent. Democratic approval remained in the single digits. The movement was in the middle — voters evaluating the war on what they see: rising gas prices, no clear objective, no exit strategy, and a $200 billion supplemental funding request.

Multiple polls converge on 26 to 28 percent approval among independents, with disapproval between 66 and 70 percent. [1] [4] The deficit is consistent across pollsters, methodologies, and question framings. Whether the prompt says "handling Iran" or "military action in Iran," independents give the same answer.

The Partisan Fortress

The overall approval number has not collapsed because the Republican base has held. Trump's 40 percent reflects near-total Republican loyalty and near-total Democratic opposition, with the actual political signal buried in the independent crosstab that most headline writers ignore.

YouGov's data show Americans "increasingly split on party lines over the U.S. attack on Iran." [1] The split is not symmetrical. Republican support is broad but shallow — partisan loyalty more than strategic conviction. Independent opposition is deep and widening. Democratic opposition is total and irrelevant to the political calculation, because those voters were never available.

The 27 percent of independents who still approve are the floor. The question for midterm strategists is whether three more months of war, rising energy costs, and no stated endgame push it lower.

What the Numbers Cannot Say

Polls measure sentiment, not consequences. A president at 27 percent approval among independents on his signature foreign policy initiative is in political danger — but danger converts to electoral outcomes only if the issue persists through the cycle.

The war is twenty-two days old. The midterms are seven months away. The question is whether a war that every major pollster shows is unpopular with the voters who decide elections can become popular — or whether the administration has already lost the argument it has not yet made.

The numbers say the argument is losing. The direction says it is getting worse. The silence from the White House — a president who once tweeted Rasmussen numbers at 6 a.m. has not mentioned a poll in twelve days — says they know.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington