Polls show Americans split on Venezuela operation, wary of deeper U.S. role

The polling data presents a potential political challenge for President Donald Trump: his own supporters had broadly signaled before the Venezuela operation that they favored less U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts, and about 7 in 10 of his 2024 voters had said they wanted the country to take a less active role in the world’s problems, according to AP VoteCast.

WASHINGTON — Americans are roughly evenly split on whether U.S. military forces should have been sent to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but nearly half oppose the United States taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government there, according to an Associated Press analysis of recent polls.

The surveys, conducted before and immediately after the military operation, show that public opinion on the intervention remains unsettled — and that it enters difficult political terrain, given the priorities Americans said they wanted the government to address as 2026 began.

Americans wanted the government focused at home

Going into the new year, Americans were less focused on foreign policy than they had been in recent years. About one-quarter of U.S. adults listed foreign policy topics — such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Israel, or general overseas involvement — as issues they wanted the government to prioritize in 2026, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in December. That share was down from roughly one-third who named foreign policy priorities in each of the prior two years. Almost no respondents specifically named Venezuela.

Health care, economic worries, and cost-of-living concerns ranked as the leading priorities Americans wanted the government to address, the AP-NORC poll found.

Drug trafficking — a central justification the Trump administration offered for the Venezuela operation — drew limited public attention as a government priority. Few Americans mentioned drug-related issues in the AP-NORC poll; it was primarily a Republican concern, with about 1 in 10 Republicans citing it compared with hardly any Democrats or independents.

Americans split on the military action

A Washington Post/SSRS poll conducted via text messages over the weekend following the operation found opinion closely divided: about 4 in 10 Americans approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, roughly the same share were opposed, and about 2 in 10 were unsure, according to the AP analysis. Republicans broadly approved of the action while Democrats were largely opposed.

Maduro pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges in New York, according to the AP.

A December 2025 Quinnipiac poll had found about 6 in 10 registered voters opposed U.S. military action in Venezuela before the operation took place. Republicans were more divided at that point: about half supported such action, while about one-third were opposed and 15% had no opinion.

Strong resistance to U.S. governance of Venezuela

Even as opinion on capturing Maduro remained divided, resistance to a broader U.S. role in Venezuela was more pronounced. Nearly half of Americans — 45% — said they were opposed to the United States taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country, according to the Washington Post/SSRS poll.

About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country, the same survey found.

Republican voters’ prior preferences

The intervention carries a potential political challenge for President Donald Trump in light of what his supporters had said they wanted before the operation. Only about 1 in 10 Republicans said they wanted the U.S. to take a “more active role” in solving the world’s problems, according to a September 2025 AP-NORC poll. A majority of Republicans — 55% — said the current level of U.S. involvement in global affairs was “about right.”

Trump’s 2024 backers expressed that preference more sharply: about 7 in 10 voters who supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election said they wanted the U.S. to take a “less active” role in the world’s problems, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of registered voters in all 50 states.

A Fox News poll conducted in December — before the Venezuela operation — found Americans roughly split on whether Trump was keeping his “America First” campaign promise, with about half saying he was keeping it and a similar share saying he had abandoned it. About 1 in 10 Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 said they felt he had deserted that promise, while the overwhelming majority said he had kept it.

The AP analysis noted that public opinion may still shift as the Trump administration clarifies its next steps for Venezuela. But the polling data entering the new year showed the administration’s expanding hemispheric posture running ahead of where many of its own voters had said they wanted to go.