The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board has a dire message for President Donald Trump: the tariffs could cost him Texas.
This is backed, the board wrote, by a Texas Public Policy Foundation poll showing "that tariffs are unpopular in the Lone Star State, especially among Hispanics." Specifically, it "shows that Texans overall disapprove of his tariffs, 54% to 46%. Texans who didn’t vote in a party primary — generally independents and folks who are less partisan — disapproved of them, 68% to 32%. Hispanics gave them the thumbs down, 69% to 31%."
Numbers like this are a serious problem for the GOP, said the board, "because Mr. Trump won 55% of the state’s Hispanic vote in 2024, no doubt in part owing to frustration with Democrats’ handling of inflation. But Hispanics also strongly oppose the President’s blunderbuss border taxes targeting trade partners like Mexico and Canada, which raise costs for consumers and businesses."
The WSJ editorial board has been one of the sharpest and most vocal opponents of Trump's tariffs on the right since the beginning.
Texas has long been considered a "white whale" for Democrats, who have gotten close to competing in the country's most populous red state several times but haven't won a statewide office there since 1994 — the longest dry spell of any state in the country. This year their crop of candidates is polling closer than ever, with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico leading a majority of polls against state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The bottom line, wrote the board, is that "the tariffs have become an albatross for Republicans in close races across the country, including Texas" — and that "Every time he threatens more tariffs, Mr. Trump is making Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s day."
