How Did American Voters Respond to the 2018 Trade War?

Abstract

This paper investigates whether regional exposure to the 2018 trade war tariffs influenced voting patterns in the U.S. House of Representatives elections. Using county-level data and accounting for input-output linkages, I find that higher protection offered by import tariffs led to increases in votes for Republican candidates. However, the overall impact was negative and economically small as gains from import tariffs on outputs were canceled by those on inputs. Moreover, there is no evidence that import tariff exposure induced party switching, as votes for Democratic candidates remained unaffected. Lastly, exposure to retaliatory tariffs had negligible electoral consequences. These findings highlight the limited political impact of trade war tariffs in the 2018 midterm elections.

Keywords: voting, election, trade war, tariff, protectionism