Americans do not want war with Venezuela

Military intervention in the country is even more unpopular than Trump’s tariffs and health care cuts

President Donald Trump announced at a press conference on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 that the United States government had successfully captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, and would try him domestically for crime related to narco-terrorism against the U.S. Trump also announced that America is “going to run the country, essentially, until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition” to a new regime. Trump said members of his administration would be working with Venezuela’s new leadership to expand U.S. oil production in the country.

The president quickly ran into a few problems:

1. Venezuela’s new leader, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, called the U.S. an illegal invader and said she was not working with the Trump administration. She called Maduro the rightful leader and demanded he be released.

2. Invading a foreign country and kidnapping its president amounts to an act of war, which the president, per the Constitution, needs congressional approval for, but which he did not seek. Political pressure mounted against the president quickly on Saturday. (And presumably, invading Venezuela makes the government less likely to want to work with you on other reforms.)

3. By a 4:1 ratio, polls show the American people oppose the use of military force for regime change in Venezuela — including the strike that led to Maduro’s capture over the weekend.

Numbers one and two above will be both legal and political problems for Trump going forward. This newsletter is about data and politics, so I’m going to focus on point three.

Based on the public polling data, it’s clear that Trump’s invasion of, and intent to manage a petro-corporatocracy in, Venezuela is yet another example of him prioritizing the interests of his friends and a narrow coalition of voters over the majority of Americans. Most Americans, by a 25-50 point margin (depending on question wording), oppose war with Venezuela.

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I. Polls show people don’t want military action in Venezuela

I spent most of my Saturday morning looking up every major public opinion poll on Venezuela from the past six months. They all showed the same thing: Americans broadly oppose military intervention in Venezuela, regardless of how pollsters worded the question. Some emblematic examples follow:

The broadest framing — a general invasion of the country, without a goal stated — was the least popular. A September YouGov poll found just 16% support for a “U.S. invasion of Venezuela,” with 62% opposed. And this is a pretty stable result: By mid-December, Quinnipiac found 63% of registered voters opposed “U.S. military action inside Venezuela,” with only 25% in support.

When pollsters specified the goal of military action (removing Maduro), the numbers barely improved. Data for Progress found in December that 60% of likely voters opposed “sending American troops into Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power,” versus 33% in favor. September YouGov polling on using military force “to overthrow Maduro” found 53% opposed and just 18% in support, with the rest unsure:

Even the narrowest, lowest-stakes framing of U.S. conflict against Venezuela — strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean — couldn’t muster majority support. Quinnipiac found 42% in favor versus 53% opposed.

Here’s all this data compiled in one chart:

In all polls I could find that were (a) about U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and (b) conducted over the last six months, no matter what question was asked, a majority of American adults opposed military action. The size of the gap between “Oppose” and “Support” for these questions ranged from 27 to 46 points, depending on question wording.

To put that in context, a -37 net approval for a presidential act would make the invasion even more unpopular than Trump’s budget act from last Summer, which was then one of the most unpopular laws ever passed.

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II. Regime change is even more unpopular

But if the initial intervention was unpopular, what happens next could be even worse. Trump’s announcement that the U.S. is going to “run” Venezuela evokes the recent history of failed involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And despite the president’s claim that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was “on board” and had told Secretary Rubio, “we’ll do whatever you need,” her resistance signals that things will not go as easily as Trump wants.

In polling, Americans express severe resistance to the idea of getting involved in another long-term foreign conflict. Only 37% told Data for Progress that removing Maduro should be even a “somewhat important priority” — far behind domestic issues like health care and prices.

The administration’s defenders will argue that Maduro is a dictator and deserves to go to jail. Polling shows Americans agree he’s bad: According to YouGov, 50% of Americans have no opinion about Maduro, 44% view him unfavorably, and just 6% favorably.

But disliking a foreign leader is not the same as supporting a war to remove him. The public has drawn a clear line in the sand: Maduro bad, sanctions and pressure good; invasion and occupation, no. Now we will see what the consequences are for crossing that line.

III. Americans want Trump to consult Congress

There’s another problem: Trump never asked Congress. I will let the experts handle the explanation of why what Trump did is illegal, and focus on the data.

The polling indicates that Americans believe congressional approval should be a required step in deploying military forces abroad.

CBS News found in December that 75% of Americans — including 58% of Republicans — believed a president must get congressional approval before taking military action in Venezuela (they are right). The same poll found large majorities saying the administration needs to explain what the U.S. intends and that it has not done so clearly.

That poll found Americans opposed to military action in Venezuela by a 40-point margin:

Similarly, Reuters/Ipsos found in their polling about Trump’s boat strikes that support for military actions against individuals “without judicial authorization” caused support to drop further. Just 29% of Americans supported killing drug traffickers “without judicial oversight,” according to Ipsos, with 51% opposed.

IV. More cracks in MAGA?

Opposition to the invasion is not evenly distributed. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly oppose military action, while Republicans are roughly evenly divided.

On sending troops to remove Maduro, December polling from Data for Progress found Democrats opposed 89% to 9%. Republicans were more supportive—roughly 44-52% in favor depending on question wording—but a sizable minority (27-36%) opposed. Independents opposed 57% to 38%.

Still, Republicans are not as aligned with Trump as he would like. Per a CBS News/YouGov poll, there is a 20-point divide in support for “military action in Venezuela” among Republicans who define themselves as “MAGA” (66% support) vs “Non-MAGA” (47% support).

If the occupation drags on or goes badly, non-MAGA Republicans could become a problem for the administration. Trump has encountered resistance already from Republicans such as Thomas Massie and Rand Paul.

To be sure, it is likely that many Republican voters will fall in line now that the operation has happened; how many is an open question. As political scientist Seth Masket noted Saturday, voters tend to update their foreign policy views toward the actions taken by their party’s leaders. This happened after Trump’s bombings in Iran this summer. I expect Republican support for the intervention to rise in the coming weeks.

V. Why public opinion matters here

Trump launched this operation without the consent of Congress or the American public. Every major poll from the past six months showed Americans wanted pressure on Maduro through sanctions and diplomacy, not another U.S. military occupation in a foreign country.

But why do the polls matter? Because we live in a democracy, and what the people want is supposed to guide government action. As I argue in my book, when leaders ignore the public, they undermine the democratic bargain.

That is exactly what Donald Trump has done, again and again, in his second term. Trump’s second tenure has been defined by minoritarian governance — acting against clear public preferences on tariffs, DOGE cuts, social spending, and health care, and now Venezuela. His approval rating sits at historic lows for this point in a presidency. The invasion adds another deeply unpopular act to the list.

If the U.S. gets further involved in Venezuela — which Rodríguez’s resistance suggests may be necessary to achieve Trump’s ambitions of takeover of the country’s oil industry — the political headwinds will only strengthen. By the time American forces touched Venezuelan soil early Saturday morning, Trump had already lost the public. That betrayal is likely to get worse, not better.