Methodology

The Institute for Global Affairs (IGA) at Eurasia Group developed, commissioned, and paid for this survey from YouGov as part of its Independent America program, which explores how US foreign policy could better be tailored to new global realities and to the preferences of American voters. Lucas Robinson and Jonathan Guyer wrote the survey instrument and analyzed and interpreted the findings.

This pre-midterm survey is the third installment in IGA’s 2026 War President polling series on US public attitudes toward the war in Iran and the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. It follows surveys fielded April 24–27, 2026 and August 11–14, 2026. Each survey collected an independent, nationally representative sample.

Sample, Fielding, and Quality Control

YouGov fielded this three-question module to a sample of 1,000 adults aged 18 and older residing in the United States between October 29 and November 2, 2026. The survey was self-administered in English on YouGov’s web platform across desktop, smartphone, and tablet devices. The median length of the full omnibus survey was 6.5 minutes.

Respondents were sourced from YouGov’s non-probability, opt-in survey panel of US residents who have voluntarily agreed to participate in YouGov’s online surveys. Panel members are recruited through multiple channels to help build demographic and geographic diversity in the panel population, including web advertising campaigns (public surveys), permission-based email campaigns, partner-sponsored solicitations, and SMS-to-web recruitment (voter registration-based sampling). Panelists are invited to participate via email or SMS according to their contact preferences.

YouGov screened for quality using attention checks and completion-speed checks. Its review of open-ended responses applied to other modules on the omnibus; IGA’s module had no open-ended questions. Of 1,376 panelists who started, 1,303 were eligible completes. YouGov removed 143 in post-fielding quality checks, leaving 1,160 qualified interviews, and sample matching then selected the final 1,000.

Matching, Weighting, and Margin of Error

To align the sample with the US adult population, YouGov used sample matching: from the 1,160 qualified respondents, it selected the 1,000 who most closely matched a target population frame on gender, age, race, and education. The target frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the US Census Bureau’s 2024 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement public-use file and the 2024 AP VoteCast survey of the electorate, incorporating demographic benchmarks and 2024 presidential vote choice. Further detail on the frame and weighting is available on request.

The overall margin of error is ±3.4 percentage points for the full sample, adjusted for the design effect of weighting; estimates for subgroups have larger margins of error.

Questionnaire and Design

Party identification, ideology, and political interest were drawn from YouGov’s pre-profiled panel records rather than asked immediately prior to the policy questions. IGA’s three substantive questions were administered online in a fixed sequence: an economic trade-off between military goals in Iran and domestic prices; an institutional question on whether President Trump or Congress should have the final say in ending military action; and the electoral impact of a federal candidate’s support for the war.

To mitigate response-order effects, substantive response options on each question were randomly reversed across respondents, with “Not sure” anchored last. All questions required a response, with “Not sure” explicitly presented on screen. All three items were fielded for the first time in this survey and are not longitudinal trends.

These items adapt earlier public opinion benchmarks: an item from a 2022 AP-NORC poll on Russia sanctions trade-offs, a question from a 2007 ABC News/Washington Post poll about the Iraq War, and a question about candidate support fielded in a September 2026 NBC News poll. Specific wording, sampling, mode, and response scales differ from the originals.

Full question wording, response options, and complete demographic and political breakdowns are available in the survey topline and crosstabs.

Reporting Conventions and Subgroups

All percentages are weighted. Each response category is rounded independently to the nearest whole percentage point, so columns may total 99% or 101%, and any net or gap figure is calculated from the rounded values rather than the underlying data. References to “Americans” in the text mean US adults.

Party identification is drawn from the seven-point party ID scale. Democrats include respondents who identify as strong or not very strong Democrats as well as independents who lean Democratic; Republicans are defined the same way on the Republican side. Independents are respondents who lean toward neither party. The 52 respondents who answered “Not sure” on party identification are counted in the full-sample column only. Gender is reported for men and women; 10 respondents who identified as non-binary or other are included in the full-sample column only. Family income is grouped into three bands: under $50,000; $50,000 to $99,999; and $100,000 or more; the 92 respondents who declined to report income appear in the full-sample column only.

Fielding Context and Limitations

This survey was conducted immediately ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, with the US–Iran war in its ninth month and elevated domestic fuel prices central to the national political debate. As with any survey, news coverage of current events and the closing days of the campaign may have had short-term effects on respondents’ views, though the attitudes measured here closely track patterns observed in IGA’s April and August 2026 surveys.

Because the sample is opt-in and non-probability, adults without reliable internet access are not covered. Matching and weighting on demographics and 2024 vote choice help align the sample with the US adult population, but the margin of error does not account for coverage, selection, or measurement error.

Data Availability

Full question wording, response options, and results are in the accompanying topline and crosstabs, alongside the factsheet and included charts. Additional methodological details are available on request.

IGA alone takes responsibility for the design of its survey module and the analysis and interpretation of these findings. Questions about the methodology or data may go to Lucas Robinson (robinson@instituteforglobalaffairs.org) or Jonathan Guyer (guyer@instituteforglobalaffairs.org).