By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - U.S. public approval of the war with Iran fell to its lowest level since the conflict's early days, helping to hold President Donald Trump's popularity at a record low, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday.
The four-day poll showed just 31% of Americans support U.S. military action against Iran, down from 37% in a March Reuters/Ipsos poll and 34% earlier this month. The decline was driven by fewer self-identified Republicans backing the conflict. Some 69% of Republican respondents support the war, compared with 77% in March.
The war has been dragging on Trump's public standing this year, and for the second survey in a row just 33% of respondents said they approved of the Republican's performance in the White House, the lowest level in Reuters/Ipsos polls in Trump's first or second term.
Trump has told Americans that the war - which started with U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28 - is necessary to keep Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. The conflict has cooled in recent months but Iran has kept in place a de facto blockade of oil exports from the region, which has pushed U.S. gasoline prices near record highs.
Trump has vowed to ramp up economic pressure on Iran and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced a possible expansion of sanctions on countries doing business with the country, but stopped short of actually imposing penalties, a sign of how thorny the conflict has become for the administration.
FEARS OF A LONG WAR
Some 83% of the country thinks the war will go on "for an extended period of time," the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll found, up from 80% earlier this month.
Trump campaigned ahead of the 2024 presidential election on promises to control inflation and avoid lengthy military conflicts. Six months into the war with Iran, U.S. gasoline prices are more than a dollar higher per gallon than they were before the war. That is weighing on Trump's Republican allies who will be defending narrow congressional majorities in the November 3 midterm elections.
Independent voters in the poll favored Democrats over Republicans - 33% to 19% - when asked who they would vote for in congressional elections if the election were held today.
The poll surveyed 1,215 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
