NEW YORK CITY: When American voters went to the polls in the midterm elections last week, more than twice as many of them wanted Washington to shield them from rising prices, compared with those who wanted to see US military goals fully met in Iran, according to a survey completed the night before the vote. They were also much more inclined to punish candidates who had backed the war than to reward them.

The findings help explain how the eight-month-old conflict contributed to the Republican defeat last week.

Fifty-six percent of respondents said the US should prioritize efforts to avoid higher prices at home, even if military goals in Iran were not fully met. Only 22 percent said Washington should pursue those war goals even if prices rose.

Support for the war proved a liability at the ballot box; 44 percent of those polled said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who backed the conflict, compared with 13 percent who said it would make them more likely, while 26 percent said it would not make much difference to their choice, and 16 percent were unsure.

The results of the poll were published on Monday. It was commissioned by the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group and carried out online by YouGov, who questioned 1,000 US adults ages 18 or over between Oct. 29 and Nov. 2. The reported margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 points.

Democratic voters were the most strongly opposed to pro-Iran war candidates; 76 percent said support for the conflict would put them off voting for a candidate, while only 3 percent said it would earn their support. Independents leaned a similar way, by 43 percent to 5 percent.

The war did not rally large levels of support for those who backed it within President Donald Trump’s own Republican Party, either. Less than a third of Republicans, 32 percent, said a candidate’s support for the war made it more likely they would vote for that person, 13 percent said it made it less likely and 40 percent said it made no difference.

This left pro-war candidates with no clear advantage, even among their core voters, as the survey showed that this indifference came from the party’s base, not its margins.

“It’s not soft Republicans shrugging,” Jonathan Guyer, program director at the Institute for Global Affairs, told Arab News. He said the “no difference” response was highest among strong Republicans, at 43 percent, and linked this to a previous institute poll that found strong approval of Trump’s handling of Iran had fallen by 15 points among Republicans between April and August.

The support weakened further among Republicans who did not identify so strongly with the party; only 20 percent of them said a pro-war candidate would win them over, and a quarter were unsure. Guyer cautioned, however, that the sample size for this particular grouping was small and, because the poll closed before the election took place, it could not show how respondents actually cast their ballots.

Attitudes about the effects of the conflict on the economy also showed the gulf between the parties. Democrats chose concern about prices over war aims by a margin of 81 percent to 4 percent of those polled, and independents by 57 percent to 12 percent. Half of Republicans, however, said they wanted the US military goals to be achieved regardless of the cost.

A majority of voters said they wanted the decision on when the war should end to rest with lawmakers, rather than Trump; 53 percent said Congress should have the final say on ending US military action against Iran, compared with 29 percent who named the president. Republicans were the only group in which a majority, 60 percent, favored letting the power to decide rest with Trump.

Guyer said that Republican voters were less united on these issues than their party’s leaders were, with a third of them willing to accept falling short in Iran if it would avoid higher prices.

“That suggests efforts in Congress to rein in the war could find support beyond Democrats, and the new Congress will have a chance to use the war powers the Constitution gives it,” he added.

Earlier rounds of the institute’s “War President” series of polls pointed to a similar trend. In August, 81 percent said the war had raised the cost of living at least somewhat, including 73 percent of Republicans. In April, 61 percent said the president should not be able to order military action without congressional approval. The perceived link between the war and rising household costs held steady across the institute’s spring and fall polling.

“Four out of five Americans connect rising costs of living to the cost of war,” Guyer said. “It’s an unpopular war that Americans are connecting to the kitchen table.”

The results now read as an early warning of the Republican defeat that was to come. The Democrats regained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday, defeating Republican candidates even in traditionally deep-red areas Trump carried by wide margins in the presidential election two years ago.

The following day, Vice President JD Vance laid the blame for the defeat squarely on the conflict with Iran. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote in a message on social media platform X.

Election-day polling supported the view the war was a factor, while showing other issues mattered more. About six in 10 voters said the US had made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran. Yet only about one-third said the war was a “crucial” factor in their decision on who to vote for in Congress, while about a half listed the cost of living or government corruption as crucial factors.

Trump described Vance’s assessment as “largely true,” pinning the blame for the defeat on the surge in gasoline prices, while standing by his original decision to go to war. Asked the day after the elections when the conflict would end, he told reporters: “Whenever I want it to, but it’s got to be done right.”

The war began on Feb. 28 with joint US and Israeli strikes against Iran. Tehran subsequently largely blocked all shipping other than its own from exiting the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that usually carries 20 percent of the world’s oil flows. Oil prices jumped above $120 a barrel in late October, shortly before the election.

The institute plans to carry out the next installment of its War President survey series in December.