President Donald Trump’s disruptive trade policies are threatening to alienate a significant tranche of his own voters, a major red flag for Republicans going into 2026.
A new POLITICO-Public First poll conducted last month found between a quarter and nearly half of people who voted for Trump in 2024 have doubts about various elements of his tariff policies, especially around his approach to China.
Just half of Trump voters surveyed believe his tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy would benefit American companies — a core premise of the president’s protectionist trade agenda.
The survey is a warning sign for Republicans, given how much the president has focused on trade and the promises he’s made to bring industries back to the U.S. Trump has also reignited global trade tensions in recent days, firing off a series of combative tariff letters to other nations threatening to impose significant new tariff rates on them.
Even before those moves, the mid-June poll shows, Trump faced the risk of losing supporters over his tariff moves. He promised to bring down the cost of goods as part of his 2024 campaign, but the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s trade wars risks upending the global economy and driving up inflation after a long stretch of hounding former President Joe Biden over the issue.
About 1 in 4 self-identified 2024 Trump voters, for example, said last month that the president’s tariffs are hurting the United States’ ability to negotiate better trade deals with other countries. They’re also evenly divided on whether Trump should have the ability to unilaterally impose tariffs on other countries in the first place, with 45 percent saying he should and 44 percent saying he should get approval from Congress.