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
Republicans in a major swing state are seeing their midterm hopes dry up, according to Politico, as President Donald Trump's contentious trade policies have threatened their most vital industry with near-extinction.
On Monday, Politico reported that Democrats in Nevada, a swing state that Trump won in 2024, see an opening to secure definitive wins over the GOP in the upcoming midterms, due to the disastrous fallout of the president's second-term policies. Both his aggressive tariff agenda and his threats about annexing their nation as a 51st American state have caused Canadians to sour on tourism to the U.S., doing major damage to the bottom lines in Las Vegas, Nevada's economic engine.
Heading into the midterms, the GOP had made Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Southern Las Vegas, a top target in the bid to potentially flip seats, but now, those plans are slipping away, just as the rest of the party is now preparing for a blue wave.
"Last year, as Trump levied tariffs on Canada, visits from Canadians — who account for up to half of Las Vegas’ foreign tourism — dropped off by 17 percent," Politico explained. "That played a large role in a 7.5 percent year-over-year decline in total tourist visits, making 2025 the worst non-pandemic year for Las Vegas since the city started tracking data in 1970. Now, as peak tourism season arrives in a battleground state where Republicans’ control of the House could be won or lost, Democrats are pushing voters to see the tourism slump as a direct impact of Trump’s levies."
“Trump instituted his reckless tariffs. In response, Canadians have literally boycotted traveling to America,” Lee said in a statement. “That has had a significant impact on our tourism.”
Trump won Lee's district in 2024 by a narrow margin, part of the only electoral victory he got from the state across his three presidential campaigns. That statistic had given the GOP hope about their odds for flipping her seat in 2026, and they remain somewhat hopeful, Politico explained, despite Trump's overwhelmingly negative impact on the Nevada economy. The state is considered particularly vulnerable to tourism declines, given that it has little else to fall back on.
"Unlike the upper Midwest or the Great Plains, Nevada doesn’t have a large manufacturing or agricultural sector jolted by the tariffs. Instead, the product most affected is the state’s Canadian visitors — who, on any given year, make up between 25 and 50 percent of Las Vegas’ foreign tourism market," the report added.
While others in the party and the White House have tried to downplay these issues, claiming that most of Vegas's tourists are American and attacking Democrats on certain affordability issues, Rep. Mark Amodei, a Nevada Republican, admitted that the president's poor communication efforts surrounding his tariffs bear significant responsibility for his state's perilous position.
“The Canadians aren’t coming the way they were. Wonder why that is, huh?” Amodei told Politico. “The communications for the tariff stuff was suboptimal.”
Meanwhile, Marty O’Donnell, the top GOP candidate likely to face Lee in November, has been supportive of Trump's tariff after some initial skepticism.
“I’m now a convert, because what I see Donald Trump doing with tariffs is not something I ever anticipated,” O’Donnell said. “He uses it as a negotiating tool in a way that I never anticipated, and I actually love what he’s doing.”