But three weeks ago, Americans were solidly behind their president in his handling of Iran, according to data from Rasmussen Reports.
In a survey of 1,105 likely voters conducted May 27-29, 84% agree at some level with the statement “Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”
Rasmussen breaks that down into two categories. Sixty-three percent strongly agree with the statement, while 21% somewhat agree.
Another convincing majority believe that Iran, if able, would use nukes against not only Israel but the U.S. as well.
Thirty-one percent said Iran would “very likely” use nukes against the U.S., while 32% said that outcome was “somewhat likely.”
Voters who identify as MAGA (Make America Great Again) are all in for Donald Trump’s core agenda, things like economic rebalancing, deportation of illegals, support for law and order and fighting against weaponization of the justice system, Mark Mitchell, an operations and strategy leader with Rasmussen Reports, said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
But foreign policy was not at the core of his America First agenda.
“On the issue of specifically Israel, Republicans are actually really kind of for this,” Mitchell told show host Jenna Ellis.
And they’re not only for Israel going it alone.
The nukes question for Iran has a natural follow-up: If Iran shouldn’t have nukes, who should stand up to make that a reality?
“We had an overwhelming majority of Americans, 57%, at least somewhat support not Israel action against Iran, but actually US action against Iran, 57% to only 30%,” Mitchell said.
There’s not enough data since recent events to project Trump’s popularity long-term, Mitchell said, but in the here and now it remains high.
“Our right direction polling, where we ask everybody every day, is the country headed in the right direction? Those numbers have been setting records off the charts just for the last couple of months. We actually, for the very first time, had a poll where a majority of Americans said the country is headed in the right direction. We've never seen anything like that in (20:23) 20 years of our polling,” he said.
Eventually, Trump’s popularity will hit a ceiling, Mitchell predicts.
“I don't think he's going to be this president that gets a 70% approval rating, like Bush did after 9-11, or like Obama did for the first couple of months of his first term. There has just been too much vitriol labeled against him.”
The trash Trump effort of Democrats
For now, the numbers – and Democrat policies rejected last November – have pushed Democrats into a corner, Mitchell says.
“They are in a really bad spot right now. They've been essentially repudiated, and all they have, quite frankly, is this attempt to undermine his popularity to try to say, ‘well, no, America doesn't actually want what Donald Trump is selling,’” Mitchell said.
The strategy isn’t working.
Almost every single issue has been off the charts in Trump’s favor including support for mass deportations of illegal immigrants in the 60-plus percent range, Mitchell said.
“Yet you have people like (California Governor) Gavin Newsom out there trying to lean into national leadership on what is essentially a 20-30% issue. It's absolutely crazy,” Mitchell said.
