Whit Ayres, founder and president of Republican-focused research company North Star Opinion Research, tells Al Jazeera that MAGA Republicans will follow US President Donald Trump wherever he goes.

MAGA, or ‘Make America Great Again’, is a political slogan used by Trump during his presidential campaign, but is also used to describe his supporters.

“If you separate the MAGA Republicans from the traditional Republicans, MAGA Republicans are even more supportive of the war in Iran because they are going to support whatever Trump believes and wants to do,” Ayres says.

The war is largely unpopular in the US, but Republicans are supportive. About 61 per cent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, while 37pc approve, according to Pew Research conducted in March.

Roughly seven in 10 Republicans, however, approve of the war and think it’s going well, but that does not mean they want to see boots on the ground, he says.

A lot of Americans are still scarred by previous wars like that in Iraq, Ayres explains, and therefore “a lot of Americans who would otherwise believe in American forces abroad, do not want to see American men and women in combat”.