71 Percent Want the New Congress to End the Iran War and 62 Percent to Repeal Trump's Tariffs — and 9 in 10 Say Start With the Cost of Living
A four-day Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday gives the incoming Democratic Congress its marching orders from the voters who elected it: end the war with Iran, repeal the tariffs, and focus the first 100 days on what things cost. Majorities of Republicans agree on the war. Impeachment is where the country splits.
WASHINGTON — The voters who handed Democrats their largest congressional majorities since at least 2008 have told pollsters exactly what they want done with them. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday found 71% of Americans — including 93% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans — want the new Congress to pass legislation ending the war with Iran, which President Donald Trump launched alongside Israel in February, Reuters reported Tuesday. A smaller but still significant 62% said they would support repealing the tariffs Trump has placed on imports. The Democratic majorities take power when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.
The through-line is the cost of living. Nine in 10 respondents said cost-of-living issues should be a focus of the new Congress in its first 100 days — ahead of artificial intelligence regulation, immigration reform and climate change — and Reuters reported the Iran war has pushed fuel prices sharply higher, adding to inflation already stoked by the new taxes on hundreds of imported goods. Trump has defended the war as necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and the tariffs as protection for American industry against cheap imports; Democratic leaders have vowed to address living costs, try to force an end to the war and end the tariffs. For Dallas–Fort Worth households, those are not abstractions — they are the gasoline price and the import shelf — but this desk invents no local number: the poll is national, of 1,705 U.S. adults, conducted online, with a margin of error of about 2 percentage points.
The mandate has limits, and the poll draws them. Asked about impeachment, 42% of respondents said it would be bad for the country if the new Congress tried to impeach Trump, against 33% who said it would be good; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is nonetheless expected to face a House impeachment vote this week, after a move by a Republican lawmaker, and congressional Democrats are divided on how aggressively to proceed. Trump's approval rating sits at 32%, near the lowest of his political career — but neither party is popular: 45% of Americans view Democrats favorably against 51% unfavorably, and 35% view Republicans favorably against 60% unfavorably. Large majorities in both parties said it matters that Trump work with Democrats and that Democratic leaders work with him.
