Dem
47
GOP
53
The effects of Donald Trump's tariffs vary by state. In some cases, they protect local industries. In others they don't protect anything but will raise prices. There have been a number of nationwide polls about the tariffs. They are very unpopular, overall, but how does that play state-by-state? The national polls don't break out the data by state and, in any event, the samples would be too small to be meaningful if they did. G. Elliott Morris (Nate Silver's successor at FiveThirtyEight until its demise) used statistical techniques to model the likely state-by-state views on the tariffs. See the link if you want to get down in the weeds, but roughly, he computed the correlation between people's views on the tariffs with their race, age, sex, education, income, and party nationally and then used the known state data to infer their views on tariffs. Very simplistically, if poor people hate the tariffs (because money is tight), then a state full of poor people will be more negative than a wealthy state. Here are the results for 13 states that have important elections (governor or senator or both) this cycle:
In each of the states above, the percentage of people who approve of the tariffs is lower than the percentage of the
vote Trump got in 2024. This means that a substantial number of Trump voters are unhappy with him on trade. The midterms
will not be entirely about trade, of course, but if there is a recession or there is inflation or both, it will be easy
for the Democrats to pin the tail on the donkey elephant and blame Trump's tariffs for their being squeezed.
In only 10 states is approval of the tariffs above 50%, and all of them are deep-red states. West Virginia is tops with 56% approval (vs. 70% of the vote in 2024). All of this suggests that talking about trade, starting right now, could be a good line of attack for the Democrats, especially in the states where it matters the most. (V)