Conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C. has long held that foreign policy and domestic politics operate by different electoral rules: even when Americans care about U.S. policy abroad, voters enter the ballot box focused on concerns at home.
But a substantial majority of Americans reject this artificial distinction, as new battleground polling commissioned by National Security Action, the organization I lead, shows. Voters surveyed across seven battleground states, six of which President Donald Trump won in 2024, are connecting foreign policy decisions in Washington to the everyday challenges they face — a political reality candidates cannot ignore as we enter the final weeks of midterm campaigning.
The new immediacy of foreign policy to the average voter reflects two converging factors: calamitous choices abroad by the Trump-Vance administration that have boomeranged with a vengeance at home, and an emerging alignment across the electorate on how America should wield power in the world.
To voters, the impact of President Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran has felt direct and material. After the safety of American service members, the vast majority of voters in Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are most concerned about the war’s effect on gas prices and inflation. An overwhelming 94 percent say the war bears at least some responsibility for higher gas prices, including 87 percent of independents and 69 percent of Republicans, while more than half of all respondents say the war is responsible “a great deal” for higher gas prices.
The same dynamic is playing out on tariffs. Voters are drawing a direct link between the country’s acute cost-of-living crisis and President Trump’s imposition of vindictive, capricious tariffs. Ninety-three percent of voters believe that Trump’s tariffs are contributing to higher prices, including 51 percent who blame them “a great deal.”
It is therefore no surprise that, even in states Trump won in 2024 and with a survey sample that leans conservative, voters sharply disapprove of his overall job performance and give him failing grades on the cost of living, keeping America out of wars, and managing trade and tariffs.
Perhaps the most revealing finding came when we asked voters to rank the biggest threats to America’s security. Their most common answers weren’t China, Russia, or terrorism. It was the cost of living, followed by government corruption and political division in the United States — all issues that feel closer to home than traditional foreign policy challenges.
It has become in vogue in recent years, especially after Trump’s reelection, to extrapolate that voters prefer isolationism. And one could interpret these responses to support such an argument.
But I believe our data tell a more nuanced — and compelling — story. Rather than seeking a retreat from the world, Americans across the political spectrum are coalescing around a foreign policy grounded in core principles of diplomacy over war, economic opportunity, and principled and accountable support abroad.
Voters want our elected leaders to focus on keeping our communities safe and our country out of foreign conflicts. They express support for maintaining a strong military and alliances such as NATO (+20), while sharply disapproving of Trump’s failure to keep us out of wars (-36).
They want our government to pursue trade policies that protect American workers and keep costs down, while cracking down on corruption and self-enrichment. More than half of those polled believe that Trump prioritizes his own financial interests, rather than what is best for the country, when he deals with other countries, and more than two-thirds agree that Congress should prioritize investigating allegations of corruption by Trump and members of his administration.
And they believe we should still provide support to other countries, including through military and development assistance, but without wasteful spending and with accountability to prevent our weapons from being misused to cause harm. Tellingly, only 9 percent of voters support providing military assistance to countries without conditions or restrictions. Nearly two-thirds support placing conditions on foreign military support to prevent misuse and shape the actions of the countries receiving it, and 21 percent favor ending all U.S. military assistance to other countries so we can spend that money at home.
When asked specifically about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just 26 percent support continued military assistance to Israel without any conditions or restrictions — including only 12 percent of Democrats and 17 percent of independents. This underscores the extent to which shifts in public opinion in recent years have solidified. At the same time, those surveyed expressed support for an affirmative American approach to the conflict focused on supporting equality, freedom, and prosperity for both Israelis and Palestinians.
As November comes into focus and as the presidential race begins in earnest, candidates should take heed. Foreign policy is no longer something voters experience only through headlines; they now see it in their daily lives. Voters are looking for a foreign policy that makes them safer and can help them prosper economically, uses our resources wisely around the world, and keeps America out of unnecessary wars.
This November, foreign policy is on the ballot. Candidates who fail to recognize that do so at their own peril.
Maher Bitar is the Executive Director of National Security Action, an organization at the intersection of politics and foreign policy. Bitar previously served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy at the White House.