The Cutting Room Floor – April 10, 2026
It's Friday. Here's some stuff we found interesting this week but couldn't fit into a full post. Take what's useful, ignore what's not, have a good weekend.
April 10, 2026 | 3 min read
This week had a lot going on, but we found there was a theme: This week's data captures a country that is paying very close attention to the Iran war, has already made up its mind on the most aggressive elements of it, and is quietly storing up opinions on issues it hasn't fully processed yet. The awareness gaps are the tell. Watch the defense budget.
Half the country now supports removal. Half. Fifty percent of voters support Democratic calls for impeachment or 25th Amendment invocation following Trump's Iran ultimatum — net +11 in favor of removal efforts — with only 11% unsure. That last number is the one. When 89% of the country has an opinion, the debate is over. They've decided.
→ The question now is who's driving the conversation.
The Iran crisis is the most-followed story of the week — and it isn't close. 65% call the ceasefire and Strait of Hormuz tensions a major factor in evaluating Trump's job performance, and 54% say they've heard "a lot" about it. Those are the highest salience numbers in the dataset. Voters are tuned in.
"A whole civilization will die tonight." Voters weren't impressed. When told of Trump's ultimatum language, 58% opposed the rhetoric vs. 26% support — a 32-point rejection, the widest gap on any question tested this week. The civilizational framing isn't landing as gravity. It's landing as alarm.
Meanwhile: the $1.5T defense budget is underwater by 20 points and almost nobody knows about it.The record defense spending request paired with 10% non-defense cuts sits at 50% oppose vs. 30% support — but only 25% of voters say they've heard much about it. High opposition, low awareness. Same signature as Medicaid and SNAP two weeks ago. Watch this one.
→ Low awareness + clear opposition = a frame fight that hasn't happened yet.
"We can't fund both healthcare and the military." Voters aren't buying it. By a 45%-to-29% margin, voters oppose shifting Medicare and Medicaid to the states. And 57% call Trump's claim that the government cannot fund both healthcare and the military a major issue for his presidency — even though only 20% have heard much about this debate yet. That's a pattern we keep seeing: opinions that are clear before the story has fully broken.
Jailing journalists hit 60% opposition. Only 17% have heard about it. Trump's threat to jail a journalist who wouldn't name a source drew the widest gap in that survey — 60% oppose vs. 24% support, net −36. And almost no one is following it. This has significant room to grow as awareness builds.
→ Even with a national security framing, the press-jailing number barely moved. When the question was reframed around operational security and the F-15E rescue mission, opposition dropped only five points — from net −36 to net −31. The national security argument isn't the off-ramp Republicans were hoping for.
NATO uncertainty is the murkiest finding of the week.Trump's approach of threatening to downgrade or leave NATO draws 47% oppose vs. 37% support — net −10 — but 27% of voters are unsure whether U.S. NATO commitments should be conditioned on allied support for Iran operations. That's the highest "don't know" rate in the entire survey. Voters sense something is off. They can't quite say what.
Democrats won Wisconsin by 20 points. The national generic ballot is a 1-point race. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race was a 20-point liberal blowout on the same day the national generic ballot showed Democrats at 44%, Republicans at 43%. Both things are true simultaneously. Democrats can mobilize massively in the right environment. The national environment hasn't caught up yet. Honestly, same.
See you next week. Go outside.
Methodology: Data from Tavern Research Public Pulse surveys fielded April 6–9, 2026. Sample sizes range from n=502–578 likely voters per wave, weighted by gender, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, birth year, and Trump approval. AI-assisted drafting, human-verified analysis. Powered by the same tools we build for our clients.
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