A new AP-NORC poll puts tariff opposition at a record high, cost-of-living approval at 17% and the economy at 26%, as Democrats make affordability the centerpiece of the November 3 midterms.
Published 11 October 2026 · 18:00 GMT
Three weeks before the midterm elections, tariffs have turned from Donald Trump’s signature weapon into his heaviest political weight. A new AP-NORC poll, conducted September 24–28 among 2,140 adults, finds a record 64 percent saying the president has gone too far on tariffs, up from 58 percent in January. Sixty-nine percent say he is not meeting his promise to fix the cost of living — including 52 percent of Republicans — and only 17 percent approve of his handling of prices. Approval of his economic stewardship has sunk to 26 percent, the lowest of his second term and a 14-point drop since March 2025, with overall job approval at 31 percent.
Three weeks before the midterm elections, the tariff issue has turned from Donald Trump’s signature weapon into his heaviest political weight. A new AP-NORC poll conducted September 24–28 among 2,140 adults finds opposition to his trade policy at record levels: 64 percent say the president has gone too far on tariffs, up from 58 percent in January. The numbers cut deeper than trade. Sixty-nine percent say Trump is not meeting his promise to fix the cost of living — including 52 percent of Republicans — and just 17 percent approve of his handling of prices. Approval of his stewardship of the economy has sunk to 26 percent, the lowest of his second term and a 14-point drop since March 2025, while his overall job approval sits at 31 percent. For a president who promised that tariffs would be paid by foreigners and felt by no one at home, the verdict is brutal. For the broader economic backdrop, see our United States factbook.
Voters were promised tariffs would be paid by foreigners; they experience them as a tax.
The AP-NORC findings read like a catalogue of broken promises. Sixty-eight percent disapprove of how Trump is handling trade negotiations. About seven in ten Americans say his handling of the cost of living has been worse than they expected. Sixty-five percent blame his policies more than outside factors for the state of prices. And the erosion is happening inside his own coalition: about six in ten Republicans now disapprove of his cost-of-living record, up from roughly half in April. The 26 percent economy approval is the number that will haunt the White House — a 14-point collapse since March 2025, and the lowest mark of the second term. Voters were promised that tariffs would be a masterstroke of leverage, paid abroad and painless at home. Instead they report paying more at the store and holding the president responsible. The gap between the promise and the checkout receipt is now the defining economic fact of the midterm campaign, as our tracking of the tariff regime has documented. The speed of the collapse is what should worry the White House most. Economic approval has fallen 14 points in seven months, and the share of Republicans disapproving on the cost of living has climbed from about half in April to about six in ten now. When a president loses his own partisans on the economy — historically the last line of defence for an incumbent party — the damage tends to compound rather than stabilise.
A second poll explains why Democrats smell opportunity. A Cato Institute–Morning Consult survey of 4,100 voters in mid-August found that three in four Americans will consider tariffs when casting their midterm ballots, and 74 percent blame tariffs for higher store prices — including 66 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats. That is the rare issue that crosses party lines: majorities of both parties agree prices rose because of the tariffs. For an electorate that ranks the cost of living as its top concern by a wide margin, the tariff question has become a pocketbook question, and pocketbook questions decide midterms. The White House’s bet was that voters would credit the strategy; the data says they are debiting the bill. With early voting approaching in many states, the window for changing that perception is closing fast, a dynamic our coverage of record-low consumer sentiment has been tracking for months.
Democratic candidates are building their closing arguments around it. In North Carolina, former governor Roy Cooper has made opposition to tariffs a centerpiece of his campaign for the state’s open US Senate seat, betting that tariff pain in a manufacturing and agriculture state can flip a chamber. Similar plays are unfolding in Georgia and Iowa, and in Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is running the same affordability-first playbook. The strategy is deliberately local: tariffs are an abstract policy in Washington and a concrete price tag in a grocery aisle in Des Moines or an auto plant outside Atlanta. By naming the tariff as the reason the milk costs more, Democrats are trying to do to Trump what he once did to his predecessors — turn the economy into a referendum on the incumbent party. With the midterms set for November 3, the affordability offensive is now the party’s unified theory of the election. The map favours the argument. North Carolina’s open seat is one of the cycle’s top prizes, and Cooper’s team is betting that tariff talk moves suburban voters who backed Trump on the economy in 2024 but now feel the pinch. In Georgia, where auto manufacturing anchors entire counties, and in Iowa, where farmers still remember the last trade war’s retaliation, the pitch writes itself.
The pain is not evenly spread, and Republicans know it. Bryan Riley of the National Taxpayers Union’s free-trade initiative notes that tariff costs vary sharply by state — an auto-manufacturing hub like Georgia feels them differently than New Mexico, with its different industrial mix. That uneven geography is why some Republican incumbents have quietly distanced themselves from the tariff regime even as the White House doubles down. There is also the matter of the money already collected. After the Supreme Court deemed the initial emergency tariffs illegal, businesses were promised court-mandated refunds — but refunds go to importers, not necessarily to the consumers who paid higher prices at the till. The result is a policy that raised prices, survived a court defeat, and may now return cash to companies while households keep the bill. It is hard to imagine a cleaner Democratic talking point, and the party is using it in every competitive state, as the softening labor market adds to the sense of an economy stalling under its own medicine. Riley’s state-by-state framing also explains the quiet Republican dissent. A senator from a port state or an auto state hears from employers watching margins compress in real time, while colleagues from less exposed states feel little pressure to defend the policy. That split is already visible in the party’s messaging — full-throated defence in safe seats, careful distance in the battlegrounds where November will be decided.
With three weeks to the November 3 midterms, the White House is out of easy moves. Rolling back tariffs now would read as an admission of failure; defending them means defending the prices voters hate. The administration’s latest personnel note — Trump has named Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary — suggests a communications reset is coming, but no spokesperson can repeal a checkout total. The deeper question is whether tariff politics has permanently reshaped the Republican coalition’s relationship with protectionism, or whether it snaps back once the electoral pressure lifts. For now, the polls point one way: voters experience tariffs not as leverage but as a tax, and they are preparing to vote accordingly. The Zacharia appointment signals the White House knows the messenger matters now as much as the message. But personnel changes do not change price tags, and with early voting already underway in several states, millions of ballots will be cast before any reset can take hold.
The stakes on November 3 go beyond tariffs themselves. If cost-of-living anger translates into votes the way the polls suggest, it will redraw the congressional map and force a Republican reckoning over protectionism. Strategists on both sides will be watching three signals: turnout in the manufacturing counties of the Midwest, Democratic performance in the suburbs where the grocery receipt bites hardest, and the scale of the Republican retreat in farm states hit by retaliatory trade measures. Whatever happens, the election will have settled a question Washington debated in the abstract: American voters now know exactly who pays tariffs — and they remember. There is a longer lesson here for both parties. Tariffs polled well as an abstraction — toughness, leverage, deals — and collapsed the moment voters connected them to their own receipts. Any future administration tempted by protectionism will inherit this dataset: 64 percent saying too far, 74 percent blaming tariffs for prices, three in four weighing them at the ballot box. The next trade debate will start where this one ends — at the checkout.
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The poll, conducted September 24–28 among 2,140 adults, found 64 percent saying Trump has gone too far on tariffs, up from 58 percent in January, and 68 percent disapproving of his handling of trade negotiations. Sixty-nine percent say he is not meeting his promise to fix the cost of living, only 17 percent approve of his price record, and economic approval sits at 26 percent — the lowest of his second term.
A Cato Institute–Morning Consult survey of 4,100 voters in mid-August found 74 percent blaming tariffs for higher store prices, including 66 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats. Three in four said tariffs will factor into their midterm vote. The finding crosses party lines: majorities of both parties agree that the checkout total rose because of the tariff regime.
The Court deemed the administration’s initial emergency tariffs illegal, triggering court-mandated refunds to the businesses that paid them. But refunds go to importers, not necessarily to the consumers who absorbed higher prices at the register. Democrats argue the episode proves the policy raised household costs without a legal foundation — and that the money is flowing back to companies, not families.
Affordability is the party’s closing argument. In North Carolina, former governor Roy Cooper has made tariff opposition a centerpiece of his bid for the open US Senate seat. Similar campaigns are running in Georgia and Iowa, and Sherrod Brown is pressing the same case in Ohio. With the midterms set for November 3, Democrats are turning every grocery receipt into an argument against the tariff regime.
