Democrats aim to turn Trump’s tariffs against GOP in campaigns for governor

WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than a week after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul listened as one of the plaintiffs in the case recounted the financial toll of the levies on his wine importing business.

“This is a heavy tax and you have to pay it up front,” Victor Schwartz, the owner of VOS Selections, told Hochul as they walked alongside bottles of wine he imports from 16 countries.

As Hochul seeks reelection this year, she says the impact of Trump’s tariffs is a “centerpiece” of her message. She has pressed the administration to issue a $13.5 billion tariff refund to New Yorkers following the Supreme Court decision. And she released an ad this week criticizing her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, for supporting the levies and attending the White House event where Trump unveiled them with a massive board listing the rate for each country.

“This is a lethal issue for Republicans this November,” Hochul said in an interview. “You can be sure we’re going to make sure people know who did this to them.”

She’s not alone. Democrats running for governor across the country are making tariffs central to their pitch to voters. They’re betting that in an election year dominated by issues ranging from immigration to the war in Iran, rising costs connected to the tariffs will be a motivating issue for many voters.

“That picture of (Trump) with the tariff board is going to be front and center in every single one of our campaigns,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who is leading the Democratic Governors Association this year, said in an interview.

White House spokesman Kush Desai countered that “what Democrats are really running against are President Trump’s Most-Favored-Nations deals to slash prescription drug prices by up to 90 percent, trillions in investments to bring manufacturing back to America, and new trade deals that level the playing field for American workers.”

“All of these historic victories were possible because of tariffs.”

This is a challenging election year for the GOP

Republicans are entering a challenging election year as they contend with voter anxiety around spiking prices — an issue Trump pledged to fix during his 2024 campaign — and the record of a president’s party losing ground during the midterms.

Much of the focus has been on Congress, where Democrats are just a few seats shy of taking the House majority. But the party is also aiming to regain ground outside Washington as they hope to hold onto governorships in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin and eye GOP-held seats in Nevada, Georgia and Iowa.

In interviews this week, Democrats running in some of those states said tariffs and the broader issue of affordability will be at the forefront of their agenda.

In Nevada, state Attorney General Aaron Ford sued the administration over its initial round of tariffs and is suing again as Trump seeks to revive them. As he seeks the Democratic nomination to take on Republican incumbent Gov. Joe Lombardo, Ford called the tariffs “illegal” and blamed them for restaurant closures and fewer visitors to his tourism-dependent state.

“Tariffs are at the very top of the conversation because Nevadans every single day are feeling the impacts,” Ford said.

In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is seeking reelection in a state Trump won by more than 5 percentage points in 2024 with a focus on costs. She criticized GOP Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert, who are vying for the nomination to challenge her, for “cheering on these reckless tariffs.” Both lawmakers voted against a measure last month to end the national emergency Trump declared to impose tariffs on Canada.

Hobbs said the cost concern was about more than tariffs, noting Medicaid cuts, rising health costs and a spike in gas prices in the wake of the war in Iran.

“They’re being hit everywhere,” she said.

Republicans try to turn affordability concerns back on Democrats

Republicans largely reject the tariff criticism and are trying to turn the anxiety about affordability back on Democrats, especially in high-cost states where they already govern. Blakeman, for instance, said in a statement that Hochul is “solely responsible for the affordability crisis in New York, with crushing electric bills, soaring insurance rates and the highest taxes in America.”

In an interview, Schweikert argued that “it was only a few years ago in a previous administration that the Democrats actually liked tariffs. So this seems to be if Trump’s for it, they’re against it.”

Trump, for his part, hasn’t given up on the tariffs. After calling the Supreme Court’s decision “ unfortunate,” his administration is scrambling to find ways to revive the levies. The president has already announced a 10% tariff using a different mechanism, a move that’s facing legal challenges, and wants to further raise tariffs to 15%.

But Trump’s prediction of a manufacturing renaissance that would result from companies making more products in the U.S. to avoid tariffs has not materialized. During the first year of his second term, 98,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. Revenue from tariffs is doing little to reduce the federal deficit, which is projected to climb over the next decade.

Polling suggests unease about the dramatic way Trump has imposed the levies. In January, before the Supreme Court’s ruling, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults said Trump went too far in imposing new tariffs and using presidential power, an AP-NORC poll found.

A balancing act for the GOP

Now Republicans are trying to balance acknowledging the public’s concern without antagonizing Trump, who remains popular among the GOP base.

Lombardo’s response to a question about tariffs last year in a local television interview has given Democrats persistent fodder. The governor said, “We need to maybe feel a little pain in the short term and hopefully in the long term it’s a huge benefit for us.”

“We’re feeling it,” Ford said of the pain, “and Nevadans are ready for new leadership.”

In a statement, Drew Galang, Lombardo’s communications director, said that “while the governor cannot control federal trade policy, he has prioritized policies to drive growth in Nevada — diversifying the state’s economy, cutting red tape, and attracting billions of dollars of business investments.”

The competing pressure on Lombardo was on display in a letter he sent to Trump last year, urging the president to lift tariffs on lithium. He argued that since “domestic processing is not yet a viable option, the current environment poses a serious risk to jobs in Nevada and across the country.”

But he didn’t reject Trump’s overall tariff push, expressing “sincere appreciation for your efforts to return manufacturing jobs back to United States soil.”

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.