Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say Iran war has been harder than Trump administration expected: Poll

Administration Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say Iran war has been harder than Trump administration expected: Poll Comments: by Max Rego - 07/26/26 5:39 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 07/26/26 5:39 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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As the U.S. war with Iran approaches the five-month mark, a new survey indicates that more than three-fourths of 2,193 respondents believe the Trump administration has had more difficulty navigating the conflict than it expected.

Two in 10 respondents of the CBS News/YouGov poll said the conflict has gone about as smoothly as the administration expected, while a mere 4 percent said the administration has had an easier time than it anticipated.

When President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the war at the end of February, the former predicted it would only take four to six weeks to complete the coalition’s stated objectives — that is, eliminate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

In the early days of the war, Trump also called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime that has ruled the Middle Eastern country with an iron fist for nearly five decades.

But now at the end of July, the U.S. and Iran are continuing to exchange strikes, laying waste to the short-lived memorandum of understanding the two sides reached to pause hostilities in late June. Eighteen U.S. servicemembers have died amid the fighting since late February, while U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Iranians.

U.S. Central Command said Thursday it completed its 13th straight night of strikes against Iran, targeting multiple military assets “to further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

The Iranian military’s restrictions on shipping in the key waterway have resulted in oil prices spiking globally, with Americans seeing the effects at the pump. The average price of a gallon of regular gas is $4.11 as of Sunday, up from below $3 in the days before the war, according to AAA.

As for the future of the war, a plurality of respondents to the CBS News/YouGov poll, 37 percent, said it will continue for months. More than 2 in 10 respondents said it will keep going for years, while 9 percent said it will continue for days or weeks and one-third of respondents were unsure.

Roughly two-thirds of respondents also said Trump should end the conflict now, while one-third said he should keep it going until the Iranian regime concedes more.

The survey had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.

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