The Iran war is already on November ballots

The Iran war is already on November ballots The conflict’s economic impacts — and not its foreign policy consequences — could sway voters. 08/25/2026 12:34 PM EDT President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war in Iran is on the ballot this November — not as a foreign policy issue, but an economic one. In Ohio and Iowa, Democratic candidates are attacking Republican opponents who backed the war as anti-farmer because the fighting has driven up fertilizer prices. In Texas and North Carolina, Democrats are hammering their GOP opponents over the rising cost of gas. Michigan Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed released an ad tying the expense of the Iran war to a lack of money to fix potholes in roads around the state. Democratic lawmakers rode anti-war sentiment to congressional victories in 2006, as a wave of candidates hammered the GOP over the fighting in Iraq. Party leaders are betting that can happen again this cycle — but with mounting economic pain helping to close the deal. “We are worse off than we were before they launched this war,” said Fred Wellman, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and is running as a Democratic challenger to Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.). “We are worse off with our allies than we were for this war. And the economic impact is going to last for years.” A POLITICO Poll conducted in August found that 61 percent of individuals surveyed believe the Iran war has made things more expensive for their families, up 4 percent from a month earlier. “If the war were to end tomorrow, the economic impacts of it would not recede in time for this all to disappear by November,” said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for The Cook Political Report. “We typically don’t see the midterms driven by foreign policy issues, but this is different because of the impact on the economy.” The shift is already showing up in campaign advertising. In the 2024 election cycle, Republicans accounted for 87 percent of ads mentioning gas or gas prices in House and Senate races, according to a POLITICO analysis of AdImpact transcripts. This year, Democratic candidates have been behind about two-thirds of ads mentioning gas prices — many referencing the war as the driver. “Voters want us to lower their costs,” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), an Iraq war veteran who is running for reelection, “not rubber-stamp another reckless war overseas.” Republican candidates are scrambling to solidify counter-messaging that focuses on the importance of keeping Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. “I don’t think the war in and of itself is front and center with voters,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican strategist. “The impacts of the war, however, are the needle that must be threaded.” He said GOP hopefuls need to emphasize the war has been a military success — Iran’s “capabilities are nothing” — but acknowledged that voters will be more receptive “if gas prices come down over the next two and a half months.” Former Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Chris Carney, who ran for Congress as a war critic in 2006, said the specifics of that wave election and this year’s anti-war sentiment differ in the length of the conflict and casualty count. But he said the fundamental question for voters is the same: “Are we safer? Are you better off than you were before the war started?” The drumbeat of messaging is intensifying as the election draws closer. The left-leaning political action campaign VoteVets posted anti-administration messages this week on more than 1,000 billboards around major military bases across the country, calling for veterans to remember that the fight “means higher prices for you” as they head to the polls. Iran “has had a massive impact on the global economy,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, a senior adviser for the defense-focused group. “This is not a war that we had to embark upon, it is a war of choice, and it is having a direct economic impact on each and every American. And the Republican Party owns this war.” Kevin Madden, who was a senior adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, acknowledged that GOP candidates are on the defensive. The way to turn that around, he said, is to “focus their message on the national security threat” and “force their opponents to either explain or defend their position” regarding how they would have handled Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. But even that, Madden conceded, may not be an effective rebuttal. “The No. 1 issue driving this election environment right now is affordability,” he said. In POLITICO’s August poll, 56 percent of respondents said a top issue facing the country right now is cost of living issues, with 29 percent also citing “the poor state of the economy.” Only 17 percent saw “global instability” as a major concern. “Voters are not feeling the immediacy of the need to attack Iran,” said Taylor, the Cook Report analyst. “The war is unpopular, and that tells me that Trump and his administration have not successfully prosecuted the case for doing this.”