YouGov's generic congressional ballot tracker showed a two-point increase in favor of Democrats, which appears to coincide with Trump’s "Liberation Day" tariffs in April, according to Newsweek.
The two parties were practically tied in the poll between October 2024 and April 2025, but that ended with Trump's unilateral tariffs that rattled markets and prompted a sharp sell-off last month. Trump’s personal approval has recovered some since ‘Liberation Day,’ but Newsweek reports YouGov’s tracker and recent election results “suggest the Democrats may now be gaining some momentum in the face of anxiety about the impact of Trump's tariffs.”
In April, Democrats defeated the GOP candidate in a special election for an Iowa State House seat and voters in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race delivered a major blow to Trump and Elon Musk—who had poured millions into backing the Republican candidate. Then, last week, Democrat Keishan Scott defeated his GOP rival Bill Oden in a landslide win for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
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Former Obama adviser Peter Loge told Newsweek that Americans may be losing patience with the spectacle of Trump-era politics.
"Voters may also be tiring of what can look more like reality TV than governing,” Loge said. “The latest spat between Trump and Musk is the stuff of tabloids, not the serious work of the world's largest economy and military."
But economics are surely playing a role, considering the timing of the uptick and Trump’s tariff announcements. Treasury Department data collected by the Bipartisan Policy Center reveals Trump charged U.S. businesses and business-owners $69.9 billion in additional tariff and excise taxes within the span of only two months. The president has not broadcast the end date of his current tariff of at least 10 percent on nearly everything the U.S. buys from other countries.
But the tariff windfall “isn't coming out of thin air,” reports NPR. “Nor is it being paid by foreign governments, as Trump often argues.”
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"It's a tax on the backs of people who are importing either raw materials or, in my case, wine," Ohio-based importer Patrick Allen told NPR. "And eventually it gets built into the price everybody is paying for goods."
Read the full Newsweek report at this link.