By Washington Post staff / June 18, 2025
What do Americans think about the possibility of launching U.S. airstrikes against Iran, which President Donald Trump threatened this week unless the country dismantles its nuclear program? The Washington Post texted more than 1,000 people on Wednesday to ask.
The poll finds Americans opposing U.S. airstrikes against Iran by a 20 percentage-point margin — 45 percent to 25 percent — with a sizable 30 percent saying they are unsure.
Two-thirds of Democrats oppose airstrikes against Iran but Republicans are not as united, with 47 percent supporting strikes while 24 percent oppose them and 29 percent have no opinion. Independents lean against the strikes by about a 2-to-1 margin, with more than one-third unsure.
Among Trump voters, 46 percent support airstrikes while 26 percent are opposed and 28 percent are unsure.
Americans in military or veteran households are split on whether to launch strikes against Iran, while other households oppose it by a wide margin.
Seven in 10 Americans say they have heard at least a good amount about Israel and Iran’s airstrikes against each other over the past week.
Support for U.S. airstrikes is highest among people paying the most attention, though even among this group more oppose than support attacking Iran.
About 1 in 5 Americans say Iran’s nuclear program poses an “immediate and serious threat” to the U.S., while nearly half say it’s a “somewhat serious threat” and one-third say it is still less threatening than that.
Republicans are more likely to say Iran’s nuclear program is an immediate and serious threat than Democrats or independents, but a plurality of Republicans say it is “somewhat serious.”
About 4 in 10 Americans say they are “very concerned” about getting involved in a full-scale war with Iran, with a similar percentage saying they are “somewhat concerned.”
More than half of Democrats say they are “very concerned” about the possibility of a full-scale war with Iran, compared with about 4 in 10 independents and fewer than 3 in 10 Republicans.
[Please see original for more details and graphs.]
About this story
This Washington Post poll was conducted by text message on June 18, 2025, among a random sample of 1,008 U.S. adults from the SSRS Opinion Panel, an ongoing survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households. The sample was weighted to match U.S. population demographics, partisanship and 2024 vote choice. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Analysis by Scott Clement. Development by Irfan Uraizee and Eric Lau. Design by Shikha Subramaniam. Editing by Dan Eggen, Kevin Uhrmacher, Betty Chavarria and Junne Joaquin Alcantara.
