As a wave of new polling is released exploring voters' views on Donald Trump's decision to assassinate a top Iranian commander, remember to dig deeper than just the top lines on whether people support the military strike itself. Not only will the initial polling not be entirely dispositive of where public opinion ultimately comes down on Trump's action, but the data underlying how voters feel about Trump as a person and a leader may actually prove to be more consequential in shaping public opinion on Iran.
A new HuffPost/YouGov poll released Monday, for example, showed that a narrow 43% plurality of Americans approved of the strike killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, while 38% disapproved of it, and another 19% were unsure. But the same poll found that only 39% of the public approves of Trump's handling of foreign policy overall, while 50% disapprove of it.
Likewise, a solid plurality of Americans say:
- Trump didn't plan the strike carefully enough, 43%-35%.
- Trump should have gotten congressional authorization, 44%-34%.
- Trump has no clear plan for dealing with Iran moving forward, 47%-32%.
In other words, at least a plurality of the public's first reaction is to support the actions taken by a president, but in actuality a similar plurality feels very queasy about Trump's decision-making process and the forethought put into it.
That dichotomy reflects a consistent strain of uneasiness seen in polling throughout Trump's tenure, including over the past year. Even though Trump's job approval rating has remained relatively steady (not to mention low) in the 41%-44% region, other polling on Trump's comportment as president more generally has revealed deep misgivings among voters.
On Ukraine, for instance, AP-NORC polling in late October 2019 showed that 67% of respondents think Trump did something wrong (either unethical or illegal) versus 30% who said he did nothing wrong. The same October poll found that a meager 24% of people think "honest" describes Trump either "very" or "extremely" well, while 56% said that's either "not very" or "not at all" reflective of him, and 19% said it was only "moderately" accurate.
Views of Trump's handling of foreign policy, in particular, have been pretty dismal on a consistent basis. In the AP-NORC poll last fall, only 38% approved of Trump’s foreign policy handling, while 59% did not. But that wasn't just an impeachment dip: An ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in early July found that only 40% of Americans approved of Trump's foreign policy, while 55% disapproved of it. That poll also showed that more than 6 in 10 Americans think Trump has acted "unpresidential" since taking office.
The point is, Trump's modest job approval ratings seem to mainly be buoyed by how voters view his handling of the economy, where his approvals are typically above water. But when you get into Trump's foreign policy, he's been stuck underwater for over year or even more. A 2018 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that 56% of Americans thought the nation's foreign relations were getting worse, with 57% saying the U.S. was losing allies.
For better or worse, American voters tend not to get overly focused on foreign policy until something goes seriously wrong. Well, something is going seriously wrong. And as Trump and his deputies ratchet up tensions with Iran, they are doing so in a climate in which Americans are already prone to distrusting Trump, his decision-making skills, and his foreign policy in particular. In many ways, Trump’s decision to assassinate Soleimani is the culmination of exactly what so many Americans have feared about Trump: that, fueled by his own incompetence, he would make some impulsive and irrevocable decision that puts the nation on a path to war for no good reason. That appears to be exactly what’s happening, and the polling has reflected American’s deep-seated discomfort with this potentiality all along.