As of August 28, 2026, about 37% of Americans support the Iran War, while 55% oppose it. The US has announced plans to impose new sanctions on Iran, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling them "the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary." The data on public opinion is tracked by The Silver Bulletin, which calculates its average based on polls that ask neutral questions about support for the war. This marks a slight decrease in polling activity, but The Silver Bulletin continues to update its average every week with new data.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-31,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
🕒 The latest on the Iran War’s popularity
Updated August 28, 2026
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latest → update → popularity
This week, the US announced it was prepared to impose new sanctions on Iran, according to CBS News.
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it → announce → News
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said they would be “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.”
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they → say → adversary
Although polls on the Iran War have slowed down, we’re still adding new data to the average every week.
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we → slow → average
As of today, about 37 percent of Americans support the conflict while 55 percent oppose it.
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percent → support → it
In other Silver Bulletin news, we launched our 2026 midterm election forecast this month.
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we → launch → forecast
This is our landing page for polls about the Iran War1, tracking support for U.S. military action in Iran since March 1, the day after the war began.2 We’ll regularly update this average as new polls come in.3
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polls → track → average
This page is designed to be viewed on the web rather than in our email client or the Substack app.
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page → design → client
Click here for more information on how the average works.
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average → click → information
The Silver Bulletin average weights more reliable polls more heavily — you can find our latest pollster ratings here.
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you → weight → ratings
Our process for calculating support for the Iran War is similar to that for calculating President Trump’s approval ratings.4
The topline: So, just how popular is the Iran War?
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War → calculate → ratings.4
This average includes polls that ask about support for the Iran War, strikes in Iran, or U.S. military involvement in Iran.
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that → include → Iran
Compared with tracking approval ratings, questions about war can be less straightforward.
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questions → compare → war
Our goal is to limit the analysis to polls that ask neutral questions rather than introduce assumptions about how the war is going or its objectives.
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war → limit → assumptions
(See below for more details on how we make this assessment.)
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we → see → assessment
Our default version of the ratings reflects a combination of all polls, whether conducted among adults, registered voters, or likely voters.5
The polls: What do the surveys say?
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surveys → reflect → What
You can see all the numbers for each poll that feeds into our average below.
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that → see → average
You can also click here to download all the Iran War numbers.
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You → click → numbers
We exclude questions that:
Make presumptions about the reasons for or against the war and/or offer an assessment about whether these objectives have been met (even if respondents are offered arguments on both sides);
Ask how the war is going relative to the respondent’s expectations (i.e., “Is the war going too far”?);
Ask about President Trump’s approval on Iran, as opposed to support for the overall war operation6, or;
Ask about some particular aspect of the war (e.g. targeting nuclear facilities) rather than the overall situation.
Also, in line with longstanding Silver Bulletin policy, surveys that fail to provide the specific question wording or other key details about the poll (dates, sample frame, sample size) can’t be included.
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that → exclude → poll
Polls are adjusted for house effects (i.e. persistent differences between a pollster’s findings on the war and the consensus) and are weighted based on each firm’s pollster rating and the poll’s sample size and recency.
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Polls → adjust → rating
The “influence” score in the table below shows the relative importance of a poll in our current average given these considerations.7 In practice, recency is often more important than the other factors in our weights.
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recency → show → weights
As a reminder, we update this database about once per day.
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we → update → day
If a poll seems to be missing, we may not have added it yet, we may be awaiting more information from the pollster, or it may contain question wording that doesn’t meet our standards for this project.
That is, all of these questions postdate the start of the war on Feb. 28; we don’t include hypothetical questions before the war was underway.
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war → seem → questions
We begin our average on March 1 because only one poll was completed on the 28th itself.
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poll → begin → 28th
If you notice any bugs in the charts or missing polls, just shoot Eli a message and he’ll get them fixed as quickly as possible.
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them → notice → message
Because pollsters have been asking questions about the war frequently, we apply the more aggressive settings that we use for our Trump approval tracker rather than the more conservative ones used in, for example, our Elon Musk favorability ratings.
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we → ask → ratings
However, if a pollster releases multiple versions of the same survey, our hierarchy is all adults > registered voters > likely voters.
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hierarchy → release → survey
That is, we prefer the broadest sample frame as we’re interested in how all Americans feel about the war.
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Americans → prefer → war
We’ll admit this is a fussy distinction, but it’s fine for Trump to be mentioned in the preamble to the question so long as he isn’t the subject of the question.
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he → admit → question
So, for example, “Do you approve or disapprove of the Trump administration’s decision to take U.S. military action against Iran?” is included, but “Do you approve or disapprove of President Trump’s handling of Iran” is not.
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approve → approve → Iran
The influence score also reduces the weight on any one survey if a particular firm has polled about the war frequently.
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firm → reduce → war
Such a firm may still have a lot of influence on the average, but essentially this weight is divided among the various recent polls it has conducted.
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it → have → polls
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