Nearly 70 percent of Americans say the US-Israeli war is not worth fighting, marking a significant spike since July.
Published On 1 Oct 2026
Approximately 70 percent of US adults in a new nationwide poll say the US-Israeli war has not been worth fighting, a five-point spike since July.
“Seventy-one percent of adults disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran and 69 percent say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting,” said the survey released on Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
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The poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 adults in the US, also suggested that Americans are deeply frustrated with US President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy and rising prices, with only 17 percent of US adults polled approving of his handling of the cost of living. Just 26 percent approved of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.
Public angst over fuel costs has surged, with about half of respondents now deeply concerned about being able to fill their tanks —up from 39 percent in July. Roughly half of respondents are also highly concerned about being able to afford food.
The data comes as Trump kickstarts his midterm campaign trail in an all-in effort to galvanise the Republican base, stumping first in Texas and Oklahoma amid widespread voter anxiety surrounding the war on Iran’s mounting economic fallout.
The poll also indicated that, despite their frustration, two-thirds of Republicans surveyed said that higher than usual prices are due to factors outside of Trump’s control, with about one-third saying it was directly related to Trump’s policies.
The sombre numbers suggest the president remains deeply unpopular nationally, with some Republicans also faulting him for failing to deliver on promised relief.
‘Pollsters are corrupt’
Overall, more than half of adult respondents said the national economy and the country as a whole are worse off since President Trump took office again in 2025.
In an interview with TIME magazine, published on Thursday, Trump was asked if the deeply unwanted war would threaten his party’s chances in November, to which he initially responded, “It’s possible,” before adding that “it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
Confronted with sliding poll numbers, Trump said that the “pollsters are corrupt” and that the bad polls “are fake”, adding that he would beat anybody running today “by 20 points”.
