United Kingdom 
United States 
Deutschland 
France 
España 
Italia 
International 
This week's Economist / YouGov poll finds that 32% of Americans strongly or somewhat support the U.S. using military force to overthrow the government of Iran, while 45% oppose this, amounting to net support of -14.
This is down slightly from last week's survey, when on a similarly worded question, 29% of Americans strongly or somewhat supported forcibly overthrowing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 39% opposed this, a net support of -9 with rounding. That minor decline in net support was driven by larger falls among Democrats — to -64 now from -52 last week — and Independents, to -27 from -17. Meanwhile net support among Republicans increased to +50 from +39. Opinion about overthrowing the Iranian government had become more politically polarized after the attacks.
A similar increase in party polarization happened after the U.S. attacked Venezuela in early January: Support for overthrowing then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro among Republicans rose from 44% before the U.S. captured Maduro to 78% afterwards.
The latest Economist / YouGov poll went into the field on Friday, February 27, just before the U.S. attack on Iran that began Saturday, February 28. Almost 90% of respondents started their surveys after the U.S. announced its attack. Other YouGov polls fielded after the U.S. attacked Iran have found more Americans disapprove of the attacks than approve of them.
The net opposition among Americans to the attack on Iran is noteworthy in the context of an advantage for Republicans on the issue of national defense. 33% of Americans say they trust the Democratic Party more to handle national defense, and 38% trust the Republican Party more. 88% of Republicans trust the Republican Party more, a greater proportion than the 75% of Democrats who trust the Democratic Party more. Independents are evenly divided, with 24% trusting the Democratic Party more on national defense and 25% trusting Republicans more.
Image: Getty (Majid Saeedi / Stringer)
What do you really think about President Trump, American politics in general, and everything else? Share your reality, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.