Republicans are increasingly breaking from President Donald Trump over the war in Iran. A growing number of GOP candidates are calling for an end to the nearly seven-month-long war on the campaign trail, even in traditionally red parts of the U.S. On Capitol Hill, the latest war powers resolution weighed by the House was approved with fresh Republican support.
And recent polls show that as the conflict has stretched on and hit Americans’ wallets, approval of Trump’s handling of the war among Republican voters has dropped by double digits. The defections come as active hostilities in Iran have resumed in the last month after peace talks between Washington and Tehran stalled over the summer. Trump, who initially projected that the war would last a matter of weeks, has in recent days publicly floated the possibility that he could “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and “blow the entire nation up.” At the same time, however, he has also recently predicted that the conflict will end after the midterms.
And not long after levying a fresh threat in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, he told reporters at the diplomatic gathering that he had a “very good” meeting with “mediators of Iran.” “It's to their advantage to make a deal, and we can do that,” he said on Tuesday. Still, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concern that Trump has not laid out an exit strategy for the conflict and sounded alarm about the impact the war is having on fuel prices, which have spiked around the U.S. since it began. With GOP fears over the pivotal November elections growing, more candidates and lawmakers in the party are choosing to distance themselves from the President on the issue—and though the defectors remain in the minority, Republican strategists tell TIME that GOP disapproval for the war in Iran will likely only continue to mount.
A handful of Republican candidates have recently pushed for an end to Iran on the campaign trail as the midterms near, including several in tight Senate races. Rand Paul of Kentucky, says about midterm candidates to TIME. A Congressional Budget Office report released last week found that the war has driven up energy prices in the U.S. mainly due to disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route through which one fifth of the world’s crude oil flows, adding 2.3 percentage points to the annualized rate of inflation of 5.3% in the second quarter of 2026.
The price of regular gasoline is up around 52% from the start of the war at around $4.48 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with diesel prices up 71% in the same period. Diesel Prices Just Surpassed a Record $6 Per Gallon.
Here Are Three Ways That Affects You For many Americans, these rising prices are among the most important issues when voting in the midterms. A /Ipsos poll from late August showed that 47% of voters said the cost of living would be the single most important factor for them when deciding who to vote for in November. On top of that, support for the war is low, with only a quarter of Americans believing that it’s worthwhile, according to the same poll.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
