Washington — Less than a week after supreme court Hit the boss Donald Trump Global Tariffs, New York Government. Cathy Hochul One of the plaintiffs in the case heard the financial cost of duties imposed on his wine importing company.
“This is a huge tax and you have to pay it upfront,” Victor Schwartz, owner of VOS Selections, told Hoochul as they walked past bottles of wine he imports from 16 countries.
As Hoochul He is seeking re-election This year, she says the impact of Trump’s tariffs is “the focus” of her message. She lobbied the administration to issue a $13.5 billion tariff refund to New Yorkers following the Supreme Court’s decision. She issued an ad this week criticizing her Republican rival, Bruce Blackmanto support fees and attendance White House event Trump unveiled it with a huge sign listing the price for each country.
“This is a fatal issue for Republicans next November,” Hochul said in an interview. “You can be sure that we will 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 rhetoric to voters. They are betting that in an election year dominated by issues ranging from… Immigration to War in IranHowever, the higher costs associated with tariffs will be a motivating issue for many voters.
“(Trump’s) photo with the billboard will be front and center in every one of our campaigns,” the governor said. Andy Bashir The Kentucky governor, who leads the Democratic Governors Association this year, said in an interview.
White House spokesman Khush Desai responded that “what Democrats really oppose are President Trump’s most-favoured-nation agreements to cut prescription drug prices by up to 90%, trillions in investments to bring manufacturing back to America, and new trade agreements that level the playing field for American workers.”
“All of these historic victories were possible because of tariffs.”
Republicans are entering a challenging election year as they grapple with voter anxiety over rising prices — an issue Trump pledged to fix during his 2024 campaign — and the president’s party’s losing record during the midterms.
Much of the focus is on Congress, where Democrats are only a few seats shy of winning a majority in the House of Representatives. But the party is also aiming to regain strength outside Washington, where it hopes to retain governorships in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin and eyes GOP-controlled 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 would be at the top 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 face the current Republican governor. Joe LombardoFord called the tariffs “illegal” and blamed them for the closure of restaurants and a decline in visitors to his tourism-dependent state.
“Tariffs are at the top of the conversation because Nevadans feel their impacts every day,” Ford said.
in ArizonaDemocratic Governor. Katie Hobbs He is seeking re-election in a state that Trump won by more than 5 percentage points in 2024 with an eye on the costs. She criticized Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert, who are vying for the nomination to challenge her, for “encouraging these reckless definitions.” Both legislators Vote against It was an action last month to end the national emergency that Trump declared to impose tariffs on Canada.
The cost concern is about more than tariffs, Hobbs said, pointing to Medicaid cuts, rising health care costs and rising gas prices in the wake of the war in Iran.
“They are being beaten everywhere,” she said.
Republicans have largely rejected criticism of the tariffs and are trying to shift concern about affordability back to Democrats, especially in high-cost states they already govern. For example, Blackman said in a statement that Hochul is “solely responsible for New York’s affordability crisis, with its sky-high electricity bills, high insurance rates, and the highest taxes in America.”
In an interview, Schweikert claimed that “just a few years ago under the previous administration, Democrats actually liked tariffs. So it seemed like if Trump was for it, they were against it.”
For his part, Trump did not abandon tariffs. After calling the Supreme Court’s decision.” regrettable“His administration is scrambling to find ways to revive the tariffs. The president has already announced a 10% tariff using a different mechanism, a move that faces legal challenges, and wants to increase the tariffs to 15%.
But Trump’s prediction of a manufacturing renaissance that would result from companies making more products in the United States to avoid tariffs has changed. Not achieved. During the first year of his second term, he lost 98,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. Revenue from tariffs does little to reduce the federal deficit, which is expected to rise over the next decade.
Polls indicate unease about the dramatic way in which Trump imposed the tariffs. In January, before the Supreme Court ruling, about 6 in 10 American adults said Trump went too far in imposing new tariffs and using presidential power, which is AP-NORC poll Found.
Now Republicans are trying to balance acknowledging the public’s concerns without antagonizing Trump, who remains very popular among the GOP base.
Lombardo’s response to a question about tariffs last year in a local television interview served as a catalyst for Democrats. “Maybe we need to feel some pain in the short term, and hopefully it will be good for us in the long term,” the governor said.
“We feel it, and Nevadans are ready for new leadership,” Ford said of the pain.
In a statement, Drew Galang, Lombardo’s director of communications, 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 in business investment.”
The competitive pressure on Lombardo was evident in the A.J letter He sent a letter to Trump last year urging the president to raise tariffs on lithium. Since “local processing is not yet a viable option, the current environment poses a serious risk to jobs in Nevada and across the country,” he said.
But he did not reject Trump’s sweeping push for tariffs, expressing “sincere appreciation for your efforts to bring manufacturing jobs back to the soil of the United States.”
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Associated Press writers Josh Bock and Lynley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.