Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll

A new national University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll finds broad disapproval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran war and a further decline in the approval of his presidency.

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More than two-thirds of the survey’s 1,000 respondents disapprove of the way Trump has handled the war, and nearly as many now express disapproval in how he is handling his job overall.

“Six months into the war with Iran, with reports of the nation’s military stockpiles dwindling, the Strait of Hormuz still under the control of the Iranian government, and the prospects for a peaceful settlement to the conflict diminishing, we find that a majority of Americans (54%) disapprove of U.S. military actions in Iran, while nearly 7 in 10 (68%) view President Donald Trump’s handling of the war negatively,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll.

“Americans are overwhelmingly negative about Trump on the Iran situation,” says Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Only 1 in 4 Americans thinks he is handling Iran well. The real divide is increasingly between Trump’s hardcore MAGA base and almost everyone else. Among Republicans who identify very strongly with MAGA, 87% approve of Trump’s handling of Iran. But that falls to 58% among Republicans who are ‘somewhat MAGA’ and just 30% among Republicans who say they are ‘not MAGA at all.’ The more loosely attached Republicans are to the MAGA identity, the more skeptical they are of the war.”

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“The war in Iran is a political disaster for Trump,” says Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “A majority of Americans believe that the war has imposed serious costs on the U.S., including increased inflation (80%) and a reduced ability to respond to other conflicts around the world (55%). Americans also doubt the Trump administration’s rationales for the war: only 23% believe the war is making the U.S. safer, only 31% believe it will prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and only 26% believe it will make the world more stable. With perceptions this bad, it should be no surprise that fully 55% of Americans believe the war was a mistake.”

“If Americans don’t believe the war is achieving its fundamental security objectives, it becomes much harder to convince them that its costs are worth bearing,” La Raja adds, and notes the new poll finds that those costs are being felt by nearly everyone in the nation.

“Americans agree on one thing: the war is taking money out of their wallet,” he says. “They say that attacking Iran has increased the cost of gas and groceries, including 88% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 75% of Republicans. Even 69% of the most-committed MAGA Republicans agree. In an extraordinarily polarized country, that’s a remarkable degree of consensus, but it is not surprising because high costs are felt directly and immediately by everyone.”

“With the exception of Republicans, conservatives, Trump voters, and members of the MAGA movement, we find little support for the war, and even among many of these groups, enthusiasm for the conflict has declined since we last polled earlier this year,” Nteta concludes. “Our results suggest that the war remains unpopular among large segments of the American public, raising questions about how long President Trump can sustain public support for the conflict and whether continued military action will further erode confidence in his leadership.”
 

War Weighs Down Trump’s Overall Approval

The new UMass Amherst Poll, conducted Aug. 21-26, shows that Trump’s overall job approval has decreased by one percentage point since April, to 32%, with disapproval in his performance now reaching 64%.

“With no end in sight to the ongoing war in Iran, the continued rise in the price of gas, groceries, utilities, and housing, an escalating trade war with Canada, and the likelihood of higher interest rates, it comes as no surprise that Trump’s approval rating remains at a paltry 32%, a 1-percentage-point drop since we last polled in March 2026,” Nteta says. “With the midterm elections just two months away, the clock is ticking for President Trump and the Republican Party to offer solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. A failure to do so will likely result not only in a continued decline in the President’s approval rating but could also put Republican control of the House of Representatives and possibly the U.S. Senate increasingly at risk.”

“How low can he go?” asks Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science and co-director of the UMass Poll. “In a hyper-polarized America, aggregate approval ratings shouldn’t be interpreted the way they were when the country was less divided along party lines. The realistic range for presidential job approval is more narrow than it was when both Bushes momentarily scored ratings around 90%. So, it would be unfair to expect Trump, perhaps the most polarizing figure of this polarized era, to reach those heights. But, Trump’s ratings have never been great and they have now whittled away to the point where the lower bound on presidential job approval ratings is more relevant. He has never had more than trivial support among Democrats (1%) and likely never will. His already-limited approval among independents has fallen substantially and even his approval among Republicans, especially of the non-MAGA ilk, has declined appreciably. These numbers may not matter much for Trump himself as he approaches the lame-duck stage of his second term, but they are likely an electoral albatross affixed to the necks of GOP candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.”

“This isn’t the same old story of Democrats versus Republicans,” La Raja adds. “Trump has lost a lot of ground with independents and moderates, and we’re now seeing some cracks within his own coalition. His strongest MAGA supporters remain loyal—roughly one-third of Republicans—but his original coalition is clearly shrinking and less unified than it was when he returned to office. One-fourth of Republicans now disapprove of the job he’s doing.”

“Since April 2025, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has declined 14 percentage points, from 89% to 75%,” Nteta explains. “We see similar declines in approval among 2024 Trump voters, where approval has fallen 10 percentage points, and among conservatives, where it has fallen 9 percentage points. While these declines are not evidence of an exodus from the MAGA movement or a rejection of President Trump’s agenda, they are a warning sign for a Republican Party that will need to maintain strong support and turnout among its base heading into this fall’s midterm elections.”

“Arguably, Trump’s unpopularity is largely a problem of his own making,” Rhodes says. “Huge majorities of Americans say that Trump is not handling the war in Iran (68%), inflation (75%) and jobs (63%) well. Of course, these issues are related—Trump’s choice to attack Iran, and subsequent mismanagement of the conflict, have contributed materially to inflation and the soft economy. Moreover, his decisions to take gifts from foreign nations and profit from various businesses while in office appear to have led many Americans to express concerns about corruption in his presidency, as fully two-thirds of Americans (67%) say he hasn’t handled corruption in government well. Although presidential approval predictably decays over time, Trump’s own decisions have likely made this problem worse than it would otherwise be.”

“While a candidate for president in 2024, Trump consistently promised Americans that he, unlike Joe Biden, would tackle the nation’s affordability crisis head-on and begin lowering inflation on day one of his presidency,” Nteta says. “A little more than a year and a half into his presidency, however, Americans continue to experience rising costs for groceries, gas, utilities, health care, and housing, with inflation now higher than when Biden left office. Americans have taken note, giving Trump low marks for his handling of inflation, with a whopping 75% indicating that he has not handled inflation well during his time in office. If the 2026 midterm election becomes a referendum on the economy and the nation’s affordability crisis, the Republican Party could be facing a serious threat to its control of both houses of Congress.”
 

Unmet expectations, and regret over 2024 vote?

As the new UMass Amherst Poll finds Trump’s support continuing to fall across multiple demographics, increasing numbers say that his performance has failed to meet their expectations and report regret over giving him their vote in 2024.

The poll asked voters to assess whether Trump’s performance as president has been better, worse, or about what they expected compared to when he took office at start of his second term, and 57% of all respondents say that Trump has performed worse than they expected him to when he took office in 2025, with 28% of Republicans and 29% of Trump voters sharing this sentiment.

Just over one-fifth (21%) of Trump voters now express second thoughts about their 2024 vote and 1-in-6 (16%) Trump voters now say they would change their 2024 vote if given the opportunity.

“Since April 2025, we have asked both Harris and Trump voters to express their feelings about their vote choice in the 2024 presidential election,” explains Nteta. “Among Harris voters, we continue to find high levels of confidence and few concerns about their vote choice, with 82% of Harris voters stating that they were ‘very confident’ in their decision, up from 78% in April 2025. On the other hand, we are finding fewer Trump voters who express similar levels of confidence. In April 2025, nearly three-quarters of all Trump voters (74%) were very confident in their choice, but that number has now fallen to 58%.”

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“Presenting anecdotal evidence of Americans who regret casting their 2024 ballot for Trump has become something of a media cottage industry in the last two years,” Theodoridis says. “We have been tracking regret to see whether the numbers match the narrative. There are no takebacks in electoral politics, but around 15% of Trump voters now tell us they might or would vote differently or not vote at all if they had it to do over again. This is hardly a mass exodus from the Trump tent, but is enough that it certainly could’ve been decisive against Trump in what was a relatively close 2024 election. More notably, though, there are now clear, consistent signs of an erosion trend. Eighty percent of Trump voters tell us they remain confident in their 2024 presidential vote, but that number was 93% in April of 2025. And, the percentage who tell us they remain ‘very confident’ they made the right choice has steadily dropped from 74% to just 58%. These numbers tell a troubling story for Team Trump, and for Republicans whose names will be on the ballot this coming November, especially given how much evidence there is that survey respondents are reluctant to admit to making a mistake.”

“Only time will tell whether this declining confidence among Trump voters will translate into changes in their support for the president and his agenda,” Nteta says. “Regardless, a 16-point drop in confidence among Trump voters should be a source of concern for a Republican Party heading into a midterm election in which maintaining the enthusiasm and support of the president’s base will be critical.”

“For most Americans, Trump’s second term has fallen way short of expectations,” La Raja says. “Two-thirds of independents (67%) and nearly 8 in 10 Democrats (79%) say his presidency has been worse than they expected, and even 28% of Republicans say the same. But among the strongest MAGA Republicans, the picture is almost completely reversed—62% say Trump has performed better than they expected and only 11% say worse. The MAGA supporters are not abandoning him, but there is no doubt that he’s losing the confidence of non-MAGA Republicans and independents. That’s worth contemplating going into the midterms.”

Rhodes also points to Trump’s sliding numbers on immigration—once his highest-rated issue—as another factor contributing to his declining approval. “Immigration has long been Trump’s signature issue, and he began his second term determined to crack down on undocumented immigration,” Rhodes says. “However, Trump’s harsh immigration policies, from mass deportations to violations of human rights to violence against immigrants and American citizens, have turned his signature issue into a major liability. Today, 59% of Americans say Trump is not handling immigration well. Although Trump’s political base would prefer him to double-down on his immigration crackdown, the evidence suggests that doing so may continue to cost him support in the American public.”

La Raja agrees, saying, “Trump is sinking on immigration policy, which has long been one of his strongest issues—just 37% say he is handling it well. When your best issue is below 40% and approval of the Iran war is down around 25%, that suggests the dissatisfaction with the president is broad and deep.”
 

Methodology

This University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll of 1,000 respondents nationally was conducted by YouGov Aug. 21-26. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race and education. The sampling frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the full 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year sample with selection within strata by weighted sampling with replacements (using the person weights on the public use file).

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, region and home ownership. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.

The weights were then raked (iterative proportional fitting) on 2024 presidential vote choice and post-stratified using a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories) and education (4-categories) to produce the final weight.

The margin of error of this poll is 3.5%.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll