The Cutting Room Floor – Mar 13, 2026
Stuff that didn’t make the cut but was too good to toss
Friday, March 13, 2026 | 2 min read
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.
51% say the Iran-driven oil spike above $100/barrel is a major factor in evaluating Trump's job performance. Not the strikes themselves. Not the casualties. The price at the pump. Voters are doing the economic accounting in real time, and it's landing in the job approval column.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright's "fear and perception" explanation for $100 oil is not landing. When told Wright reassured markets that the oil price spike stems from "fear and perception" rather than actual supply shortages, 38% say his assessment is not credible vs. 32% who find it credible. One in three voters (30%) aren't sure. The administration's "temporary disruption" message is being met with doubt, not relief.
Only 32% believe the official F-15 friendly-fire explanation. 34% don't believe it. 34% are unsure. This is day three of a war. The administration can't pass the most basic credibility test at the precise moment credibility is cheapest to earn.
MTG's anti-war critique resonates with 51% of voters. When told that former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene argued the Iran war "betrays campaign promises of no more foreign wars" and could cost Republicans the midterms, 51% agree vs. 34% who disagree. The most effective messenger against this war is coming from the right flank — and a majority is nodding along.
→ The broken-promise frame isn't just a Democratic attack. It's a 51% finding.
The White House told House Republicans to stop saying "mass deportations." 56% call that a major issue. According to memos obtained by reporters, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair privately advised members to shift to "deporting violent criminals" instead. Voters barely have an opinion on the pivot itself (41% support vs. 36% oppose), but they're paying extremely close attention — 56% call it a major factor in evaluating Trump, the highest salience reading in the March 10 survey. The messaging is fine. The optics of catching them changing the messaging are not.
Cuba: 48% oppose Trump's approach vs. 31% support. Net −17. Following Trump's remarks at the Shield of the Americas summit declaring Cuba in "its last moments of life," voters are not buying either the threat or the Rubio-as-negotiator framing running alongside it. The 22% unsure suggests the Cuba story hasn't fully landed — but the direction is clear.
Venezuela oil extraction: 38% oppose, 36% support, 26% unsure. After Maduro's capture, the administration licensed Chevron and ExxonMobil to extract Venezuelan resources. This is the closest thing to an even split in the Latin America battery. The economic logic of "we captured their leader and we're now extracting their oil" has slightly more traction with voters than the geopolitical posture does. Slightly.
→ Three countries. Three net-negatives. The hemisphere isn't going great for the administration politically.
Corporate pledges to return tariff refunds to customers: net +52. 65% support, 13% oppose. The widest positive margin of the week — and it belongs to companies, not the government. Honestly, same.
See you next week. Go outside.
Methodology: All data from Tavern Research Public Pulse surveys, online panel, fielded March 2–10, 2026. Sample sizes range from n=335 to n=552 per survey. Margin of error ±3.5–9.4%.
Want the full memos behind these numbers? Email data@tavernresearch.com →
