The experts love to say that Americans don’t vote based on foreign policy, but it doesn’t take much digging to conclude that isn’t always true.
Sure, U.S. voters are probably thinking primarily about domestic issues when they go to the polls, but there have been a number of big elections in which war has undoubtedly been a major factor.
The Iraq War was the definitive issue of the 2008 Democratic primary, when then-Senator Barack Obama (who opposed the war) beat then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who voted for it. In 2016, Trump generated support by railing against “endless wars” and calling the U.S. invasion of Iraq “a big, fat mistake.” Most recently, Kamala Harris’s refusal to oppose the Gaza genocide helped seal her 2024 loss.
It’s hard to believe that foreign policy won’t be a major factor in November’s midterms, as Trump’s disastrous war on Iran continues to spin out of control with no discernible signs of an exit strategy.
At the beginning of the summer, it seemed that the administration was on the verge of securing an agreement, but its inability to restore the Strait of Hormuz to its pre-war status simply generated a series of botched negotiations and idle threats.
Americans are enduring astronomical gas prices, but they’re also seeing another “Forever War” potentially take shape, and although the Trump team has sought to censor details on the war, news about the scope of the conflict has inevitably trickled out.
A recent Congressional Research Service report reveals that 81 U.S. military aircrafts have been destroyed or damaged in the war. The Intercept’s Nick Turse points out that the Pentagon quietly raised its official count of U.S. casualties to 21, a full six months after Maj. Sorffly Davius died while “conducting operations” at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. According to estimates by Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist Mark Zandi, the war has cost U.S. consumers $265 billion so far, which is roughly $2,000 for every household.
An extensive Drop Site News investigation into the February 28 attack on a Minjab school revealed that at least 156 people were killed, 120 of them children.
“Why is [Trump] saying Iran may have bombed their own people when we can see the wreckage of Raytheon cruise missiles in the photos that we obtained that were taken from under the rubble?,” journalist Jeremy Scahill, who led the report, told NPR. “There were two direct hits on a school filled with children and teachers. It’s not that there hasn’t been reporting on this. It’s that reporting has not been translated into a very robust, aggressive investigation of what I would say is one of the worst single war crimes committed by the United States since Vietnam.”
Polling shows that war was unpopular with the U.S. population from the beginning, but recent surveys show that approval has continued to plummet. According to the Pew Research Center, just 34% of Americans believe that attacking Iran was the right decision, down from 38% in March. That shift has come entirely from Republican voters. 63% of them now believe it was the right call, compared to 69% who believed that in March.
This reality has forced some Republicans, like Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers and Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, to walk a tightrope between calling for an end to the war and remaining loyal to the President.
“The war can no longer be treated solely as a matter of executive decisions and geopolitical calculations,” writes political scientist Brian Hudson. “Responsibility extends beyond the White House to lawmakers who have supported its continuation, remained silent, or used party unity as a substitute for public debate. Accountability is no longer simply an external demand imposed on the party; it has become an internal issue affecting its credibility and cohesion.”
It’s also become an issue that Democrats can pin on the opposition party.
“It’s less Iran in particular than it is this notion of never-ending conflict and war in the Middle East, which Americans are so done with,” declared Rep. Jason Crow, who is demanding answers on a U.S. airstrike that killed at least 5 people attending a wedding in Iran. “It is very salient.”
This week, Democratic challenger Troy Jackson hammered GOP Senator Susan Collins (D-ME) on the issue during a debate, pointing out that the longtime incumbent voted for the war multiple times, despite currently expressing a desire for it to end.
“The reason why our fuel prices is going through the roof, and the way our — the reason why our electricity costs are going through the roof is because the cost of fuel, cost of oil is so high, because she wouldn’t stop President Trump with the Iran war,” he told the crowd.
Conservative W. James Antle III, Executive Editor of The Washington Examiner Magazine, writes that Republicans were always expected to lose some seats as an extension of being in power, but that anger over the war could sustain a massive electoral shellacking.
“Thanks to the Iran war and its fallout, there is a potential for a midterm election more like 2006. Twenty years ago, as Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter pointed out earlier this year, we had an unpopular president waging an unpopular war while Republican congressional incumbents were beset by assorted scandals,” he writes in Responsible Statecraft. “Today, the public has even less patience for the current war than in 2006.”
The reality is that the GOP is headed for a potential disaster in a few weeks, thanks in no small part to Trump’s terrible war.
