This is a guest post by Donald Bryson who is the CEO and President of the John Locke Foundation and Publisher of the Carolina Journal.

An August 13 Carolina Journal Poll offers a stark warning for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterm elections: North Carolina voters overwhelmingly believe tariffs make the things they buy more expensive.

The statewide survey, conducted for Carolina Journal by Harper Polling, asked likely 2026 general-election voters a straightforward question: “Are tariffs passed along to consumers through higher prices?”

More than 80 percent of those polled said yes. Just 8 percent said no, while another 11 percent were unsure.

That result ought to get the attention of Republicans defending President Donald Trump’s expansive tariff policies. It is difficult to find four out of five voters agreeing about much of anything these days. Yet on one of the most basic economic consequences of tariffs, North Carolina voters appear to have reached a remarkably strong consensus.

And the political danger is magnified by what those same voters say matters most to them.

The Carolina Journal Poll found that inflation and the cost of living are by far the most frequently cited issues in the 2026 election, selected by 43.3 percent of voters as one of their two most important issues. Social Security and Medicare came next at 22.8 percent, followed by health care at 22.7 percent.

Put those two findings together and the political problem comes into focus: voters’ biggest concern is the cost of living, and more than four out of five believe tariffs increase consumer prices. A policy so closely associated with higher prices is therefore entering the 2026 campaign on unfavorable terrain.

Tariffs probably won’t decide the midterms on their own. But they don’t have to. Republicans are already vulnerable on prices and the economy, and tariffs hit that weakness directly. When voters are worried about the cost of living — and overwhelmingly believe tariffs make the things they buy more expensive — that is an albatross the president’s party will have to carry around their necks into November.

The John Locke Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy organization and has frequently analyzed and commented on the Trump administration’s tariff policies. Examining the political durability of those policies is part of understanding the public policy process itself. Polling can tell us not only what voters think about a policy, but also whether the political coalition necessary to sustain it is holding together.

North Carolinians are not buying the tariff argument

The Carolina Journal Poll tells us what voters think tariffs do. A July 24 High Point University Poll tells us what they think of Trump’s handling of them.

Only 32 percent of North Carolinians polled approved of Trump’s handling of tariffs, while 52 percent disapproved. Tariffs were among his weakest-rated issues.

That result is particularly revealing when compared with other items in the same survey.

Trump received 46 percent approval for securing the southern border, 45 percent for national security, and 44 percent for immigration. Even “[p]rotecting American workers” received 42 percent approval and 44 percent disapproval.

But approval dropped to 35 percent on international trade and just 32 percent on tariffs.

That gap matters. It suggests that North Carolinians are not necessarily rejecting the goal Trump attaches to tariffs. Voters may well favor protecting American workers and strengthening the American economy. They are much less enthusiastic about tariffs as the instrument for doing so.

That distinction should matter to policymakers in both parties. The political choice is not simply between supporting American workers and supporting free trade. Voters appear quite capable of supporting the former while questioning whether tariffs accomplish it.

National polls tell the same story

North Carolina is not an outlier.

Two recent Economist/YouGov polls show the same basic pattern nationally. In a July 25–27 survey, only 29 percent of Americans polled approved of President Trump’s tariff regime — described as a minimum tariff of 10 percent on all imports, with higher rates for most countries — while 58 percent disapproved. Even tariffs targeted specifically at China failed to win majority support: 34 percent approved of 25 percent tariffs on certain Chinese products, while 54 percent disapproved.

The results were no better when respondents were asked more broadly about Trump’s handling of foreign trade. Thirty percent approved, while 60 percent disapproved.

Three weeks later, an August 14–17 Economist/YouGov poll found little appetite for expanding tariffs. Nearly half of Americans (49 percent) polled said tariffs on imported goods should be reduced. Just 14 percent wanted them increased, while 24 percent preferred keeping them at their current level. Among independents, 59 percent wanted tariffs decreased, and only 10 percent wanted them increased.

Nor does the public appear eager to retreat from international trade. Forty percent said the United States should increase trade with foreign countries, compared with 15 percent who wanted trade to decrease. Among independents, the split was 41 percent to 14 percent in favor of increasing trade.

The political verdict on Trump’s tariffs was even more lopsided. Only 30 percent approved of his handling of tariffs in the August survey, while 64 percent disapproved. Half of Americans strongly disapproved.

Republican voters remain the exception. They approved of the president’s handling of tariffs by a 68 to 26 percent margin. Democrats disapproved 92 to 4 percent. But independents were much closer to Democrats than Republicans: 75 percent disapproved of Trump’s handling of tariffs, while only 17 percent approved.

Taken together, the two polls show a durable political divide. President Trump has kept most Republican voters with him on tariffs. But the policy remains unpopular across the country, and opposition among independents is overwhelming.

The problem is affordability

The political vulnerability becomes clearer when tariffs are placed alongside Trump’s other economic ratings.

In the High Point University survey, only 30 percent of North Carolinians approved of his handling of the economy, 26 percent approved of his handling of inflation, and 24 percent approved of his handling of gas prices. Tariffs, at 32 percent approval, belonged to that same cluster of weak economic issues.

Trump’s overall approval in that poll was higher, at 38 percent, while 50 percent disapproved. In other words, tariffs perform worse than Trump himself.

The Carolina Journal Poll shows a similar political environment among likely voters. Trump stood at 41.2 percent approval and 56.7 percent disapproval in August. His approval had been 45.7 percent in November 2025.

The poll also found 60.9 percent saying the country was on the wrong track, compared with 34 percent who said it was headed in the right direction.

Those numbers cannot tell us how much tariffs are contributing to Trump’s economic weakness. Politically, though, the problem is straightforward: voters already associate tariffs with higher prices, even as affordability remains their overriding concern.

But tariffs have an unusual political disadvantage: voters already seem to understand them as a policy that raises the prices they pay.

Republicans therefore find themselves defending a policy that voters associate with higher consumer costs, even as those same consumers tell pollsters that affordability is their overriding concern.

The warning signs are especially pronounced in North Carolina

The political stakes are clearest in North Carolina’s marquee 2026 contest.

The August 13 Carolina Journal Poll finds former Gov. Roy Cooper leading Republican Michael Whatley 51.5 to 39 percent in the U.S. Senate race. The same survey gives Democrats a 48.8 to 43.5 percent advantage on the statewide congressional generic ballot and a 48.0 to 42.6 percent edge on the state legislative ballot.

Republican candidates nationally have little room for error in a midterm environment that has historically been difficult for the president’s party. Since 1934, the party holding the White House has lost House seats in 20 of 23 midterms and Senate seats in 15 of 23. That history matters. When a party is already facing electoral headwinds, an unpopular economic policy adds another.

That is precisely why an unpopular economic policy is politically dangerous.

Tariffs do not have to define the Senate race to hurt Republicans. They only have to reinforce the affordability problem voters already see. In a competitive race, that matters.

And nationally, the latest Economist/YouGov crosstabs point toward the voters most likely to make the difference in competitive elections. Among independents, 75 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, while only 17 percent approve.

That weakness among independents is especially important in North Carolina, where unaffiliated voters now make up roughly 40 percent of the registered electorate. Unaffiliated registration is not the same as identifying as an independent in a national poll, but both underscore the importance of voters outside the two parties’ traditional bases.

That is an electoral vulnerability Republicans cannot simply wish away.

Polling points to a real political risk

There is a temptation in a polarized political environment to dismiss any unpopular policy as simply another partisan disagreement.

The polling on tariffs makes that explanation difficult.

Yes, Republican voters continue to support Trump’s tariff agenda. But independents do not. The public overall does not. North Carolinians do not. And, perhaps most importantly, 80.9 percent of likely North Carolina voters say tariffs are ultimately passed along to consumers in higher prices.

That does not mean voters have suddenly become devotees of classical, free-trade economics. Nor does it mean they oppose efforts to protect American workers or respond to unfair behavior by foreign governments.

The High Point University poll suggests almost the opposite: “protecting American workers” is considerably more popular than Trump’s handling of tariffs.

The lesson is narrower but politically important.

Voters can favor American workers without favoring tariffs. They can worry about China without supporting higher import taxes. And they can support a strong domestic economy while concluding that making imported goods more expensive is the wrong way to build one.

The 2026 midterms will turn on far more than trade policy. But Republicans are entering them with voters intensely focused on affordability, Trump receiving poor marks on the economy and inflation, independents strongly opposed to his tariff regime, and North Carolina voters overwhelmingly convinced that tariffs raise the prices they pay.

That combination does not guarantee an electoral backlash.

But it is exactly what a political albatross looks like.