Seven in Ten Voters Wanted Congress to Prioritize Ending the Iran War

Card photograph: ARCHIVE. Anti-war demonstrators during a No War With Iran rally in Portland, Oregon, January 9, 2020. Photo: Karney Hatch, CC BY 2.0. Cropped for the card. License. Source photograph.

Roughly seven in ten registered voters wanted the next Congress to make ending the Iran war one of its highest priorities, according to October AP-NORC polling reported by the Associated Press. About eight in ten put lowering living costs in that category.

The findings put an end to the war ahead of both investigating the Trump administration and supporting its agenda. They give a public context to the divided congressional record on Iran withdrawal: voters were asking for a change in policy, not merely a change in the party conducting oversight.

The result crossed Republican divisions. AP reported that at least half of both MAGA and non-MAGA Republican voters wanted Congress to prioritize ending the Iran war, reducing costs and cutting the deficit. Support for advancing Trump’s agenda differed much more sharply between those groups.

Iran and Israel aid were different questions

ARCHIVE. Anti-Iran-war protest in Eugene, Oregon, June 22, 2025. David Geitgey Sierralupe. CC BY-SA 4.0. License. Source photograph.

About three in ten registered voters prioritized ending military aid to Israel. That finding describes the ranking of a congressional task, not a referendum in which everyone else voted to continue weapons supplies.

Democratic voters identifying with democratic socialism were more likely than other Democrats to prioritize ending Israel aid, according to AP. Those divisions matter for incoming lawmakers who have made explicit embargo commitments. A broad agreement to end one war does not erase disagreements about another part of U.S. military policy.

For lawmakers backing an arms embargo, the findings describe a narrower base of voters treating an end to Israel aid as a top congressional priority than an end to the Iran war. The survey does not measure whether an embargo is justified, nor turn Palestinian rights into a question of American polling.

Costs and war dominated the issue agenda

A separate AP-NORC release from the same October survey found 85% of voters considered the economy important to their vote, 84% living costs, 69% healthcare and 64% the Iran war. That last measure concerns importance, not support for or opposition to the war.

The survey was conducted October 8–12 among 1,119 adults through NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel. The overall adult-sample margin of error was 3.9 percentage points. The findings preceded voting and cannot establish why a particular district elected a particular candidate.

For the new Congress, the most striking result is the scale of the demand to end the Iran war. It was not confined to the socialist left or to people who identified as Democrats. That breadth leaves lawmakers less room to treat continuing war as a settled public preference.