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Congressional Republicans are so desperate to stay focused on the GOP tax cut that isn't getting any traction that they're currently weighing a risky vote on legislation to extend those cuts that likely can't even pass the Senate.
But their fearless leader Donald Trump isn’t concerned one bit. When Trump literally tossed aside his prepared remarks at a supposed tax roundtable earlier this month in West Virginia, he metaphorically threw out the entire GOP midterm plan with it.
Not only did Trump declare taxes—Republicans’ singular legislative achievement—"boring," with his careless tariff/trade bluster, he has also upended the GOP’s appeal to the very voters who put the party in charge of the country in 2016.
Meet North Dakota farmer and Trump voter Robert Runck:
“If [Trump] doesn’t understand what he’s doing to the nation by doing what he’s doing, he’s going to be a one-term president, plain and simple,” said Mr. Runck, a fourth-generation farmer who voted for Mr. Trump. Pausing outside the post office in this town of 2,300, Mr. Runck said the repercussions could be more immediate for Representative Kevin Cramer, a Republican whose bid against Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, has been complicated by the proposed tariffs. [...]
Representative Rod Blum, a Republican, represents much of eastern Iowa and is facing a highly competitive race in what is the second-largest soybean-producing congressional district in the country. He and other politicians are facing a “nervous” farm community across the state, according to Grant Young, an Iowa-based Republican strategist.
“I listen to the farm show over the noon hour on WHO daily,” Mr. Young said of Iowa’s leading radio station. “They are usually a happy-go-lucky bunch promoting industry and holding a two-hour infomercial for the Farm Bureau. But the last couple of months I’m wondering if they need to take the sharp objects out of the studio.”
The problem with Trump's tariffs for the GOP is that they don't play well with two important and faithful Republican demographics: farmers and highly educated suburban voters who generally support free trade.
While 78 percent of Republicans said they support the tariffs in a recent New York Times/SurveyMonkey poll, only 42 percent of independents did. And ...
Support for the measure was also softer among better-educated and wealthier Americans of both political parties, echoing other evidence that backing for Mr. Trump’s agenda is weaker in the affluent suburbs that were once a Republican stronghold.
In addition, all the talk of a trade war with China and the unease in the financial markets is undercutting consumer confidence, which was clipping along pretty good before Trump's tariff experiment.
If that volatility continues, it could erode consumers’ confidence in the economic recovery. There are hints that could already be happening: The University of Michigan’s measure of consumer sentiment dipped slightly in April, with many respondents citing trade as a source of concern. SurveyMonkey’s consumer confidence index also ticked down in April, with the largest declines coming among higher-earning households, which are much more likely to own stocks.
Of course, Trump has no idea how much anger he's stoking in farm country nor does he care that he's singlehandedly killing the only issue Republicans had any chance of selling to voters this fall. In fact, just as soon as it looked like he had made a concession to farm-state voters last week by exploring rejoining the TPP trade deal, he ripped the rug out from under them this week. It’s been a startling turnabout for many Trump voters.
“This is the first time it’s in your face, especially to us in the Midwest,” said Ed Schafer, a Republican former governor of North Dakota who was agriculture secretary under George W. Bush.
One person who's not discouraged by Trump's get-tough on China policy: North Dakota Sen. Heitkamp, who was elected in 2012 with less than a 3,000-vote margin.
As Rob Port, a conservative talk radio host and columnist in the state, put it: “This is the perfect issue for her. Her base eats up the Trump bashing, but it’s also an economic argument that’ll have rural Trump voters saying, ‘Maybe blind allegiance to Trump isn’t such a good thing.’”
Please proceed, Trump. Please proceed.