A large majority of voters — 84 percent — are concerned about the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Monday.
That’s more than those who expressed concern over other foreign policy issues, including North Korea’s use of ballistic missiles, U.S. election security, Turkey’s military action in Syria and President Trump’s ongoing trade war with China.
Voters across party lines expressed concern over Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Of those polled, 89 percent of Democratic voters said they were either very or somewhat concerned about the Middle East country developing weapons of mass destruction, compared to 85 percent of Republican and 79 percent of independents who said the same.
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalated over the summer after the U.S. military confirmed that Iran shot down a Navy drone. Trump also accused Tehran of being behind attacks on two oil tankers, which prompted the administration to deploy an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East.
Tehran responded by announcing that it would surpass the limit for uranium enrichment as agreed to in the nuclear deal that was created under the Obama administration. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal last year, but Iran had agreed to abide by the agreement’s terms until earlier this year.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online between Oct. 21 and Oct. 22 among 1,001 registered voters. The margin of error for the full sampling is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
—Tess Bonn
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