President Donald Trump’s decisions to start and end the Iran war will eventually be judged for their global impact, but the effect on domestic politics should come much sooner.
Republicans are trying to defend their congressional majorities in an election year. The question is whether Trump’s Iran deal will make that task easier or harder.
Another way to look at it is whether by resolving his biggest immediate foreign policy challenge, he can also solve his main domestic political problem.
Inflation would undoubtedly be lower without the Iran war and the resulting dueling blockades of the Strait of Hormuz.
This would make public perceptions of the economy, which are currently sharply negative, at least marginally better.
The Iran war itself is unpopular, with just 38.1% approving of the job Trump is doing on this issue in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average. (Though depending on the details, the disapproval numbers could soon include Iran hawks who are dissatisfied with the deal.)
Trump won the 2024 election in part because inflation hit a 41-year high under former President Joe Biden and his replacement as the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris. He was also able to position himself in such a way as to appeal to both sides of several major foreign policy disputes.
The Iran war disrupted this dynamic, to the detriment of down-ballot Republicans running in this year’s midterm elections.
If Trump’s deal holds, and if this is truly the end of the Iran war at least through November, the next question will be whether energy prices fall soon enough for Republicans to recover politically.
Republicans appear, for now, to have the upper hand on redistricting. The Supreme Court has also limited the use of race-based congressional districts, which has tended to award Democrats House seats from majority-minority districts. Even before these two developments, Republicans were defending a higher proportion of safe House seats than when they suffered major losses during Trump’s first midterm election in 2018.
While Democrats have fielded several competitive Senate candidates in tough races, they must win a number of red states to flip the chamber, and some of their blue states are looking less certain at the moment.
The midterm elections were already a contest between terrible national conditions for Republicans and a somewhat more favorable congressional map.
What if Republicans could marginally improve those national conditions before November? The economy is still growing. The stock market has been doing well. The jobs numbers are respectable, at times beating expectations, though met with some public skepticism after recent downward revisions.
Ending the war and improving inflation could help Republicans.
But it is worth noting that the electorate wasn’t happy about the cost of living before the Iran war and when the rate of inflation was rising more slowly. Democratic candidates, including at least one socialist, won the 2025 elections by talking about affordability.
And even if the overall numbers improve, public perceptions of the economy could become locked in sometime this summer, ahead of the elections.
TRUMP’S VERY PUBLIC INNER DIALOGUE ON IRAN
Still, Trump was able to get an Iran deal with potentially enough time to benefit Republicans in the midterm elections, assuming it lasts and does not itself divide the party.
Whether it makes a difference politically will be apparent far sooner than the outcome for the Middle East.