CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten on Thursday explained how Republicans could be putting the House majority at serious risk in the midterms by supporting President Donald Trump’s Iran war.
“The most unpopular war at the start of the war that I could ever find, ever, has become even more unpopular,” Enten said.
On Wednesday, four Republicans crossed party lines by joining Democrats in passing a war powers resolution that requires Trump to get congressional approval before taking further military action in Iran.
The war held a net approval rating of -9 percentage points at its start, according to Enten, who cited an average of CBS News, Fox News and Ipsos polling.
Among independents, an early -23 net approval rating at the start of the war dropped to -40.
“So those Republicans who, in fact, did not vote with the renegade Republicans, they are helping to put that Republican majority — which was already at great risk in the House — in even more risk,” Enten said.
“It’s on the wrong trajectory right now,” said CNN’s John Berman of the net approval rating.
“This is the wrong place,” Enten said. “You want to be going up, not down.”
A majority of Americans (63%) are also against presidents using military force without congressional approval, per polling from The New York Times.
Among independents, that figure is 72%.
“Independents, of course, have been such an important part of the president’s decaying political coalition,” Enten noted. “They were pretty much even in the 2024 election, and they have shifted massively against him and especially on this war.”
There’s also a majority of those who want the ceasefire in — and negotiations with — Iran to continue, with 77% of Americans indicating such in a newly published Marquette University Law School poll.
Close to all Democrats (96%), a strong percentage of independents (81%) and more than half of Republicans back the continuation of a ceasefire.
“This is the rare trifecta,” Enten said.
“They like this idea. They do not, in fact, want a re-upstart of, let’s say, much more force going on in the Middle East, much more force going on in Iran. They want the current condition to hold, whatever exactly you call it.”