EXCLUSIVE — Republicans are betting they can convince their voters to go to the polls this November with beer.
Trumpworld pollster John McLaughlin, in a poll published on Thursday, reported that likely voters nationwide support tariffs on Mexican beer by a margin of nearly 3-to-1, 65% to 23%.
Even when voters were told that tariffs could raise the price of beer, support for the duties remained roughly the same, 67% to 23%, according to a memo from McLaughlin and Associates obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Additionally, 89% of voters support policies that protect American beer jobs and businesses, while domestic brewing garnered majority support. Sixty-four percent of nationwide voters “prefer drinking beer brewed by American workers,” the polling memo said.
The survey suggests beer could move voters to the polls this November.
McLaughlin also polled likely voters in 18 of the most competitive congressional battleground districts before this cycle’s midterm elections, though with a smaller sample size of 1,000 voters than the nationwide pool of 2,000.
In those districts, which will likely decide who controls Congress next year, voters support tariffs on Mexican beer, 54% to 34%, including independents, 52% to 35%, and identified undecided voters, 57% to 27%.
The polling memo said the policy is a “winning America First election-year issue” and that it can motivate “the Republican base nationally, and, critically, carrying Independent and undecided voters in the battleground districts that will decide the House majority.”
However, when those voters were told tariffs could raise the price of beers, including Modelo and Corona, support for duties decreased to 50% to 35%.
At the same time, 80% of battleground voters, including 76% of independents and 69% of undecided voters, told McLaughlin and Associates they support policies to protect American beer jobs and businesses.
McLaughlin’s poll comes as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union representing blue- and white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors, has been lobbying the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Mexican beer, with about 80% of the U.S. beer industry being unionized.
“Over the last 20 years as imported non-union beer has come to account for nearly 24% of the U.S. market, those industry standards have come under sustained pressure,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien wrote last March in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “Our nation’s trade policy should be driving a race-to-the-top in terms of labor standards across North America, not forcing U.S. workers to compete with low-road Mexican companies that pay their workers pennies on the dollar in a race-to-the-bottom.”
O’Brien, who endorsed Trump in 2024 and spoke at that year’s Republican National Convention, added that imported beer could soon comprise 40% of U.S. consumption, which could cost the U.S. economy $23 billion and tens of thousands of jobs.
Specifically, in 2025, Mexico supplies approximately 80% of all beer imported into the U.S., valued at $6 billion, according to MIT’s Observatory of Economic Complexity.
Modelo Especial, brewed in Mexico, was the top-selling beer by dollar sales last year, though Michelob Ultra, from the American brewing company Anheuser-Busch, was the best-selling beer by volume.
McLaughlin and Associates conducted the national poll online from Dec. 11-15, 2025, drawing from a sample designed to reflect a 2026 general election turnout model, for a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
The firm’s battleground poll was based on the Cook Political Report’s 18 toss-up congressional districts and was fielded online from June 4-8, 2026, with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.