Democrats are targeting Donald Trump’s weakened standing on the economy — even after the president paused his far-reaching reciprocal tariff policy that reverberated across global markets.
In interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers, congressional staffers and media strategists, many in the party see a prime opportunity to attack Trump on a key campaign promise they argue he’s failing to deliver — a message likely to be featured prominently in political ads if the economy continues to falter. Some candidates are already hitting tariffs in campaign launch ads, while the party is planning to capitalize on anger over the economy, among other issues, in upcoming town halls.
It’s an opportunity for Democrats on the economy, a major point of strength for Trump in his presidential campaign last year, even as they conceded the economic crisis had eased somewhat after the president paused some — but not all — tariffs on most countries. On Thursday afternoon, Trump clarified that the combined tariffs on Chinese goods is now at 145 percent. Most other nations will be subject to the 10 percent baseline tariff the administration levied last week. The markets reacted accordingly, with stocks plummeting at the end of the day.
Now, Democrats are banking on rising panic in worldwide markets and fears of a recession to knock Republicans down.
“We heard for five freaking months going into the last election, people beating up Biden and Harris about inflation, and the price of fucking eggs,” said longtime Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher, who worked on both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “So why the hell would we make [ads] about tariffs, as opposed to making it about the economy?”
He said Trump is presenting one of the most favorable gateways to Democrats in recent history, imploring Democrats not to squander the week of earned media about a near-global market implosion.
“There is an opportunity here, of historical proportions, given the advantage on the economy writ large that Republicans have had for decades,” he added. “You see Trump underwater on handling the economy and fighting inflation and bringing down costs – that is a major opening and a historic way for Democrats to take away what has been a major positive for Republicans.”
And recent polling backs up that claim that voters are waning on Trump’s economic stewardship. An Economist/YouGov poll of about 1,700 American adults released Wednesday showed Trump’s overall approval rating drop five percentage points from last week, combined with a four percentage-point drop in his handling of the economy. A poll from the Democratic group Navigator Research released Tuesday also showed 55 percent of 1,000 registered voters disapproving of Trump’s handling of the economy, an eight percentage-point swing since the group’s last poll in March. Another recent poll from the liberal group Data For Progress also showed a majority disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.
Not every poll showed dramatic changes. In a poll of 1,400 registered voters released Wednesday that was conducted April 3-7 from Quinnipiac, Trump’s handling of the economy and his overall approval rating remained steady or dropped only slightly.
Democrats and their affiliated groups are already blaming Trump for his scattershot tariff rollout as a way to pummel vulnerable Republicans in elections later this year and heading into the midterms.
Hours before Trump announced the tariff pause, the Democratic-aligned super PAC American Bridge released audio of Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, praising Trump’s tariff plan. Democrat Mike Sacks announced his candidacy Wednesday in a nearly two and a half minute ad. It featured an image of the word “tariff” nine times in bold red font along with a crimson-color graphic of a stock market plunging that was superimposed over the face of his opponent, incumbent Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), widely considered one of the most vulnerable House Republicans next cycle.
The Democratic-aligned group Families Over Billionaires, a nonprofit, is putting six figures into an ad running on social media and streaming platforms bashing the Trump administration over tax plans, and Democrats are planning a new round of town halls in GOP-held House districts over the upcoming recess.
Democrats argue the upheaval Trump injected into the economy undercuts the central premise that he campaigned on: that as a businessperson would be best positioned to grow the economy.
“The one thing that American voters want is security and safety. What they don’t want is chaos and uncertainty,” said Alex Jacquez, a former economic adviser to former president Biden who is now chief of policy for Groundwork Collaborative. “I think why you’ve seen such rapid deterioration on his approvals on the economy and on cost of living, tariffs and trade, is because not a single action that he has taken has been in service of addressing people’s number one concern, which is cost of living.”
And that is precisely what has Democratic admakers salivating.
“Keep it simple and keep it tangible and keep it relatable to everyone’s lives here,” said veteran media strategist Julian Mulvey, who has cut ads for Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. He urged Democrats and affiliated groups to not overcomplicate their messaging by talking about esoteric economic concepts like supply chains and capital markets.
Instead, he referenced the “you break it, you own it” doctrine of politics.
“Trump is sort of charging headlong into breaking the economy and, and he’s going to find out when he does,” he said. “Or in the modern vernacular: fuck around and find out.”
The White House, meanwhile, criticized the Democrats’ planned strategy.
“President Trump is the first president in modern American history to take decisive action to finally corner China and restore American Greatness,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “If Democrats see an opportunity in President Trump and Republicans standing up for everyday Americans and restoring American Greatness, they’re headed for a worse election night than November 5, 2024.”
Several Democratic media strategists acknowledged it’s too early to say what the economy will look like when prime time campaign season hits. But that hasn’t stopped progressive strategists like Chuck Rocha from storyboarding what the anti-Trump attack ads will look like in the coming months.
“The best way to deliver the ad is from one of his voters, a white guy in his 50s who works in a steel mill, works at whatever the place down the street is that says: ‘Look, I don’t really care about either party. I voted for Donald Trump because I thought he would change a rigged system,” Rocha said of a hypothetical ad that features someone speaking directly to camera. “But he’s even rigging it more, and he’s rigging it for himself.”
And that’s on top of the party’s already established playbook around Elon Musk’s sledgehammer to government. Some Democratic ad-makers said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutinck’s comments about “fraudsters” getting Social Security checks was bound to backfire.
It’s something that’s caught the attention of lawmakers too, including Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who won reelection in a key swing state that Trump flipped last year. The representative is one of 26 Democrats that the Republican campaign arm is targeting in the midterms.
“Market manipulation … that’s what happened,” Horsford said on Wednesday. “On the same day that they’re screwing America.” Horsford was referring to Trump’s social media post this week where the president proclaimed: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY.”
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