SIX STATES VOTED Tuesday on ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage. All six endorsed those initiatives, mostly by solid or overwhelming majorities. (The states were Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio.) This news may come as little surprise–boosting the minimum wage always polls well–but it did signal an Election 2006 trend: Economic populism was a big winner.

Take Ohio. In recent years the Buckeye State has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs and seen its tax burden swell. In such conditions, free trade is a definite bugaboo.