FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A key swing state with "closely watched" midterm elections coming up this year is still being "roiled" by Donald Trump's signature economic policy, tariffs, according to a report from Politico Playbook, further complicating the GOP's effort to present a winning message on affordability.
As the report from Politico's Adam Wren laid out, Michigan has "more battleground congressional seats" up for grabs in the 2026 midterms than almost any other state, in addition to a Senate seat Democrats must retain to gain control of the chamber, and a governor's race to replace term-limited Democrat Gretchen Whitmer that is currently polling at a dead heat between each party, with an independent candidate polling in the double-digits.
Michigan is also one of the states most impacted by Trump's tariffs, given its historical reliance on the automotive industry. Visiting this year's Detroit Auto Show, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg argued that the resonance of the impact tariffs are having on the cost-of-living is clear in the response from Michigan voters.
"In a lot of ways, Michigan is going to be ground zero," Buttigieg told Politico. "I think that a good measure of whether any politician is responding to what Americans are feeling is how well it’s resonating here."
According to Politico, Trump has weathered a "fusillade of criticism over his tariffs from Michigan Democrats," with Whitmer calling the policy "a failure" that has "taken a terrible toll," during a visit to the Auto Show this week. During a Wednesday address, Buttigieg argued that the tariffs have "led to upward pressure on prices at a time when affordability is the biggest economic problem that most people are living."
Realizing the trouble on their hands, the Trump administration has dispatched three officials — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer — "on a two-day Freedom Means Affordable Cars swing through Cleveland and Toledo factories kicking off today before taking their own tour of the Detroit Auto Show [on Saturday]" to help mitigate the damage, Politico explained.
While Ford CEO Bill Ford stressed to Politico that it has done its best to shield consumers from tariff-based price hikes so far, this is less likely to hold true in 2026 if Trump's tariffs continue in their current state.
"While many large businesses spent most of 2025 in wait-and-see mode, absorbing the bulk of new tariff costs, economists expect more of those costs to trickle down to consumers in the early months of 2026,” Politico's international trade reporter Daniel Desrochers explained. “Already shoppers are seeing higher prices for import-dependent items, like toys and furniture.”
Pollsters in the state told Politico that while the tariff policy is "tone deaf" to Michigan voters dealing with its economic implications, they are unlikely to convince any Trump supporters to abandon him, leaving the fate of Michigan's midterm races in the hands of independent voters.