A supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS Callaghan O'Hare
The New York Times reports Trump is nailing the 2024 coalition that elected him to the wall.
“Many voters say they are upset about the trade war, including some who cast ballots for Mr. Trump in 2024 with hopes that he would bring them relief from rising prices, according to more than four dozen interviews across six states at the center of the battle for control of the Senate,” reports the Times.
The paper said Trump’s intensifying trade conflict involving steel, dairy, appliances, automotive parts and agricultural equipment is infuriating voters and putting embattled Republicans on defense as they try to walk the delicate line between capitulating to concerned Republican voters and appeasing the Republican president. Meanwhile, the Times reports Trump is giving Democrats very good arguments for removing Republicans in the midterms, thanks to his unilateral war in Iran, which “has spooked financial markets and threatened to accelerate inflation.”
“In Maine, Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable Republican, has pushed Mr. Trump to de-escalate the trade war. In Michigan, the Republican nominee for Senate, Mike Rogers, has appeared to stand uneasily with Mr. Trump’s trade policy,” said the Times. It added that while 19 percent of likely voters oppose his trade policies, according to the latest poll from The New York Times and Siena University, that poll “did not ask voters specifically about the trade war with Canada,” which is targeting hard vulnerable Republican candidates and incumbents in pivotal swing states.
Many Trump voters, according to interviews, are incensed.
“I voted for him, and I wish I had not,” said Candace Oxley, a retiree in Kettering, Ohio. Oxley said Trump’s trade conflict and his preoccupation with vanity projects are angering her as Americans find it harder to afford groceries or gas. This, she said, is complicating how she votes in Ohio’s competitive Senate race between Republican incumbent Jon Husted and former Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat whose platform includes restraining the runaway president.
“It’s not the presidency I voted for,” said Ben Rackliff, a contractor in Jefferson, Maine, adding that Trump has taken his tariffs “to an extreme.”
Meanwhile, over in New Hampshire, carpenter Jonathon Stevens said he’d bought into Trump’s “blue-collar” approach and professed tax policies, but he is now “dismayed” by the consequences. After two years of Trump’s haphazard policies and emotional chaos, he now says he misses former President Barack Obama’s “professionalism,” and he is leaning toward supporting Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat, in the Senate race in New Hampshire.