US public support for Iran nuclear deal at record high: Poll

According to a new poll, with 10 days to go until a deadline for US President Donald Trump to decide whether to keep the United States in the Iranian nuclear agreement, public support for the Iran deal has reached its highest point previously recorded.

Fifty-six percent of people polled in the Morning Consult/Politico survey released Wednesday morning backed the nuclear deal, while 26 percent opposed it. The poll was conducted online April 26 to May 1 among 1,991 registered voters.

Net public support is at a record level — 30 percentage points — in the most recent survey. The share of voters opposing the deal — 26 percent — is at the lowest point since Morning Consult began tracking the topic in August 2015.

Sixty-eight percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents said they support the deal. GOP voters which usually take a more conservative approach to the issue were split on the matter. Forty-six percent backed the deal and 42 percent opposed it.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and did not certify it in October.

Trump has until May 12 to decide whether to continue on with the agreement, seek changes, or abandon it. Trump on Monday seemed to indicate once again that he could leave the agreement, and said the US got “nothing” after signing the deal and giving Iran access to billions of dollars.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the US, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany signed the nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.

Tehran has said the deal, which is the result of over a decade of negotiations, is not up for renegotiation, and that it has prepared several options for responding to a possible US pullout.

The public’s support for the deal comes on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial news conference Monday, during which he accused Iran of lying about the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons before agreeing to the deal in 2015.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded saying Netanyahu is like the boy who cries wolf after he repeated his old allegations concerning Iran’s nuclear activities.