Responsible Statecraft, March 2026
Americans are divided neatly along party lines on their opinion of U.S. military action against Iran, according to surveys conducted since the Iran war began on Feb. 28. But this is far from the only foreign policy issue dividing Americans by their party ID. In fact, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, this is reflective of a problematic trend: the partisan divide on U.S. foreign policy public opinion has been widening for decades and is only growing. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs first began polling Americans on their foreign policy opinions in 1974. Nearly five decades of surveys later, Managing Director of Public Opinion and Foreign Policy at the Chicago Council Dina Smeltz said the most notable development is that the polarization that has long affected domestic policy is now extending to foreign policy.
“A lot of it is relevant today, and these divisions are growing wider,” Smeltz told Responsible Statecraft. “In our data, more than anything else, partisanship really seems to determine how people view foreign policy strategies, whether they support or oppose a particular initiative.” Even as recently as the early 1990s, Smeltz said, Americans had a lot much more overlap on what they considered most important when it came to U.S. Foreign Policy. Some of these agreements have held strong today: most Americans still think the U.S should play an active part in world affairs, still support alliances and international trade, and can still agree on when the U.S. should use force, Smeltz told RS.
