For all of the effort that trade battles soaked up President Trump’s attention in 2018, the issue had relatively little effect on the midterm elections.
A NBC exit found that the issue was largely a wash. Nationally, only 25 percent of voters said Trump’s trade policies helped their local economy. Thirty-one percent said they damaged things, and 36 percent said they had no effect.
A CNN exit poll had similar results. A plurality of 37 percent said the policies had no impact, 29 percent said they hurt, and 25 percent said they helped.
The opinions broke down solidly across partisan lines too, suggesting that party loyalty, not financial considerations, was the real factor in determining what people thought of Trump’s trade agenda. Of the ones who said the administration’s trade policies helped, 91 percent were Republican, while 89 percent of the ones who said they hurt were Democrats.
“That is what it comes down to on many issues today,” said Karlyn Bowman, polling analyst for the American Enterprise Institute.
Trump himself said Wednesday that he hoped to work with Democrats on the issue of trade. “We can all work together next year to keep delivering for the American people,” he said at a press conference.
“The Democrats do want to work on (it) and I believe we will be able to do that,” Trump said.
In a break from past Republican presidents, Trump has pursued a more nationalist trade policy much more in line with the Democrats’ traditional agenda.
In his first two years in office, Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, instituted 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent ones on aluminum, threatened to pull out of the North America Free Trade Agreement, then negotiated the replacement U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace it, hit $250 billion worth of Chinese imports with tariffs, and threatened additional tariffs on autos and auto parts imports.
As a consequence, Democrats, even anti-Trump ones, generally steered clear of confronting Trump on that particular issue. And Republicans, even some free traders who would have opposed similar policies from a different administration, also avoided clashing with the administration over trade on the campaign trail.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters last week it wasn’t a factor in the elections. “The (administration’s) willingness to do something is a good thing but the product is as yet unseen … so we cannot pass judgment on it, so it is probably not having the overall effect on the election that it would otherwise have,” he said.
One of the few Democrats who did run on the issue was incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who argued that Chinese retaliation for Trump’s trade policies was to blame for the woes of the state’s soybean farmers. The NBC exit poll found that 36 percent in the farm state agreed that Trump’s hurt the economy, compared with just 23 percent who said they helped and 34 percent who said they made no impact. It was not enough to save Heitkamp, though, who lost her seat to GOP challenger Kevin Cramer, 55-45 percent.
Trump’s trade agenda may have helped him win Rust Belt states in the 2016 presidential election. But Republican Senate candidates faltered this year in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump’s stance on trade may have backfired on the GOP in a few cases by helping Democrats in red states stand with Trump and win the votes of people skeptical of foreign trade. Liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, won re-election, 53-47 percent against GOP challenger Jim Renacci despite Republicans doing well in his GOP-trending state, including taking the governor’s office. One possible reason is that Brown’s backed Trump on trade. “It is not a trade war. It is a trade enforcement action,” Brown told reporters this summer regarding Trump’s China tariffs.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who won re-election, 50-46, in his GOP-leaning state, was an enthusiastic backer of Trump’s tariffs. West Virginia is one of the states where Trump’s trade policies had their strongest support. NBC’s exit poll found that 40 percent said the policies helped their local economy; just 22 percent said they hurt while 33 percent said they had no impact.
