Broken promises: Why the Iran war could decide the midterm elections

In his victory speech on election night in 2024, President Donald Trump issued a bold promise. “I’m not going to start a war,” he declared that night almost two years ago, “I’m going to stop wars.” It was a simple but powerful line, reflective of a disruptive and unconventional — not to mention long overdue — shift in American foreign policy.The promise, as he and others have called it since, was consistent with “America First” — a movement to position the United States away from its role as a global security guarantor and toward a foreign policy guided by the interests of the public. The president’s second term started out strong on this front. But the war with Iran marked a sharp departure from that vision. Certainly, the voters seem to think so.Heading into the midterm elections, Americans across the political spectrum have sensed a clear shift away from the president’s election night promise on foreign policy. They don’t like what they see. The voters have not been shy about their displeasure with the president’s foreign policy. Polls in the early months since the war began reflected dissatisfaction in the range of 60%, with concerns about both the war’s immediate economic impacts and the decision to go to war itself. As prospects for a diplomatic solution broke down and the president began threatening major escalation in the summer, voters did not hesitate to make clear the blame they placed on his shoulders. Polling this fall reflected disapproval, with Trump’s handling of the war remaining high in the upper 60% range. With no end to the war in sight, Republican voter negativity toward the president continues trending increasingly higher.President Donald Trump arrives to board Marine One on the Ellipse near the White House, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo) It is widely accepted wisdom in Washington to say that foreign policy is never a top-of-the-ticket issue for American voters. But this midterm election cycle is poised to be an exception. The major polls over the past eight months demonstrate the connection voters are making between the Iran war and its downstream effects on their day-to-day lives, including gas prices and general affordability.The voters have real reason for their acute disappointment. Trump’s early foreign policy promises teed up a sea change. They signaled a break from the failed policies of Washington’s elites that walked the nation into more than 20 years of seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, traded away critical resources to Ukraine and other partners at the expense of U.S. security, failed to prioritize the rising military threat of China and, at their core, put the security interests of foreign capitals above those of the public.The president deserves credit for making significant headway to drive and codify the trajectory on which he began his second term. Months into 2025, Trump delivered a historic commitment by NATO allies to spend 5% of GDP on defense, putting the alliance on course to end a decadeslong status quo of American taxpayers subsidizing European security.In a landmark speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he called out the decades of American adventurism in the Middle East, condemning “nation builders, neocons, and liberal nonprofits” for having “wrecked far more nations than they built,” and wrongly intervening “in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”By the end of his first year back in office, the president’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy set the tone for downsizing America’s role in the world with a clear-eyed focus on defined American interests and priorities. War Secretary Pete Hegseth summarized the shift best in his speech to the Reagan National Defense Forum last year, vowing that “the War Department will not be distracted by democracy building interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation-building. We will instead put our nation’s practical, concrete interests first.”What has transpired in the administration since those optimistic days hasn’t gone unnoticed by the voters. Nor are they oblivious to the fact that Congress collectively sat idle while Trump waged war unilaterally against Iran for the past eight months. The trendlines do not suggest that voters are offering a pass for the legislative branch’s behavior. One recent survey shows more than 70% of Americans want Congress to prioritize two things in 2027: bringing down the cost of living and ending the war in Iran. That the two are deeply intertwined is a strong signal of how voters are assessing the current state of play in Washington.GOP TAX CUT SALES PITCH TO VOTERS UNDERCUT BY IRAN AND GAS PRICESThere is no sugarcoating the fact that the president’s decision to go to war with Iran undid his progress toward a foreign policy that reflects the priorities of the American people. He deserves credit for being the first president in the modern era to champion the “America First” vision and challenge the entrenchment and failures of Washington’s foreign policy elites. Yet he also came up short in sticking to it.The voters have seen that unfold. Expect them to be unforgiving.Katherine Thompson is a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. She most recently held senior positions at the U.S. Department of Defense, including performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, where she oversaw policy on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She also spent an extensive tenure on Capitol Hill as national security adviser to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).