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By Oliver Trapnell
Associate News Editor
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President Donald Trump's standing among active U.S. service members has weakened over the past year, a period that included the start of the Iran war, a Newsweek review of available military polling suggests.
The most recent survey by Common Defense on October 19 found 49 percent of active service personnel disapprove of Trump compared to just 42 percent who approved, giving him a net approval rating of -7.
However, five months before the start of the Iran war an August 2025 survey of 440 active-duty personnel commissioned by the same veteran-led advocacy group found Trump's net approval among active-duty personnel stood at +12, based on 53 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval.
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The Iran War
The war began on February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched major airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
At the time, Trump said the operation was intended to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Despite Trump negotiating a ceasefire which ran from April 8 to July 8, periodic clashes and heightened tensions have continued and tensions remain high over regional stability.
Why It Matters
Active military personnel and veterans have historically been a crucial Republican-leaning voting bloc for President Trump.
The 19-point decline coincides with the Iran War and broader debates over military policy, though the polling does not establish what drove the shift in opinion.
Among active-duty members, 75 percent agreed that veterans and military families are being left behind, up from 65 percent in August 2025.
Peter Feaver, professor of political science at Duke University, told Newsweek: “The general pattern with military, veteran and military families is that they follow the swings in opinion that show up among civilians but they tend to skew conservative.”
The author of Thanks For Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the US Military, said: “If the country moves to the right, the military adjacent blocks move right along with it. If the country moves to the left, the military adjacent blocks will move in that direction, too, but more slowly and not going so far.
“As the midterms demonstrated (where Trump's party lost control of both Houses of Congress), the Republican brand has suffered a great deal over the past two years among the American public as a whole. We should not be surprised if that is also showing up in sub-groups, to include military, military families and veterans.”
Pete Hegseth's Popularity Also Sees Polling Dip
A similar pattern to Trump was seen for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who suffered a dip in support from active service personnel since last year.
Hegseth slipped in approval falling from net +6 on 47 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval in 2025 to net -16 in 2026 based on 38 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval, a net swing of -22.
Jason Dempsey, executive director for the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University, said one of the more interesting findings was polling on the defense secretary, arguing that most service members typically pay little attention to the office.
“Most soldiers know the Secretary of Defense because they're expected to know the chain of command, but the idea that the average service member spends much time thinking about the secretary is kind of absurd. They're many levels removed from their day-to-day chain of command,' he said.
“Traditionally, defense secretaries are responsible for leading and managing the institution as a whole rather than acting as the public face of the military. What's different here is that you have a defense secretary who sees himself much more as a hands-on military leader.
“That makes questions about the defense secretary particularly interesting. It's much harder to connect presidential approval ratings or broader views about the direction of the country directly to military service, but this is one area where there is something distinctive worth examining."
How the Wider Military Community Sees Trump
Opinion differs sharply among all the groups polled. Across all 731 respondents in the 2026 surveyed, 47 percent approved of Trump and 50 percent disapproved.
Veterans remained net positive toward Trump, at 54 percent to 44 percent, while military families disapproved 69 percent to 30 percent. However, one of the biggest discrepancies is the difference in approval between veterans aged under 65 and those aged over 65. The results show that although still maintaining a positive impression of Trump (net +3), younger veterans expressed less favorable views than older veterans who returned a net +16 approval rating for the president.
On the war itself, veterans backed Operation Epic Fury 53 percent to 44 percent, while active-duty members opposed it 48 percent to 32 percent.
Feaver, who previously served as director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council at the White House, continued by suggesting a number of ways the Common Defense 2026 results could be explained.
He said: “The Trump administration has had a more controversial stance with respect to the active-duty force.
"Of course, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have claimed that they have ‘rescued’ the military from allegedly ‘disastrous’ policies pursued by previous administrations. But they have done so in a bombastic way and did not build political support for these changes in Congress or in the broader public.
“The Iran War clearly has not gone as the administration expected it to. Add it all up and you might get the kind of results that the Common Defense poll got.”
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A Rasmussen Reports poll with the group Veteran Action, taken as the war began, gave a more favorable view of Trump among active personnel and veterans.
Although not directly comparable due to different polling methods, the survey, which ran from February 27 to March 17, found 60 percent of military likely voters approved of Trump's job performance and 40 percent disapproved. At the time, 61 percent supported meaningful military action against Iran.
Families Left Behind
According to the 2026 poll, 79 percent say veterans and military families are being left behind by politicians and society, and 63 percent say the country is on the wrong track.
Jose Vasquez, U.S. Army veteran and executive director of Common Defense said at the time: “Right now, nearly eight in 10 veterans and military families say they’re being left behind, and active-duty troops are telling us that politicization is pushing them toward the exit. That’s not a talking point; it’s a readiness crisis.”
In 2026, Change Research on behalf of Common Defense polled 731 active-duty service members, veterans and military family members from September 15 to 28. Common Defense advocates for progressive policies and endorses Democratic candidates. Its 2026 sample was 47 percent Republican and 35 percent Democratic. The 2025 Common Defense survey was conducted by Data for Progress from August 21 to September 1, 2025, and polled 440 active duty members.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Oliver Pritchard.
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