Democrats are poised to combat President Donald Trump’s tariffs if they win congressional majorities in the midterm elections.
While they are unlikely able to get Trump to sign bills undoing his own agenda, they could force Republicans to take difficult votes on the tariffs, from which they have been shielded thus far by GOP leadership.
Trump has used his second term to roll out the most aggressive tariff regime in recent history. Republicans, once the party that defended deals to lower trade barriers, have mostly acquiesced. Democrats, on the other hand, have increasingly campaigned against the tariffs and sought to blame them for the high cost of living.
With majorities in the House, Senate, or both, Democrats would control the floor. They could bring up bills to strike down tariffs and thus put Republicans in a tough position: if they vote in favor of Trump’s tariffs, they might hurt their standing with voters tired of high prices. But if they vote against them, they could incur Trump’s wrath.
If Democrats enjoy a “blue wave” this week, they might be able to separate Republicans from Trump.
“If it’s really big on Tuesday, Trump is going to be the lameness of duck presidents, and I think you’ll find more Republicans who are willing to distance themselves with Trump because he won’t be in as strong a position to punish them if they don’t go along with them,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner.
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Democratic strategist Jon Reinish said that a win for the party this year would be attributable in large part to voter anger with Trump about the cost of living, which would only energize them to oppose tariffs.
“I think if Democrats are campaigning on using every lever that they have once in power to bring costs down, you can certainly expect for tariffs to be squarely at the center of that agenda,” Reinish told the Washington Examiner.
House Republican leadership has been cautious about the politics of tariffs. They took unusual procedural steps to disable Democrats’ ability to force votes on tariffs.
In April of last year, after the announcement of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, GOP leaders inserted language into unrelated legislation that prevented members from circumventing leadership and voting to rescind the tariffs.
Then, in September 2025, the GOP House Rules Committee further extended the blockade until earlier this year. But then in February, Reps. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Don Bacon (R-NE) broke with the party and joined Democrats to sink a procedural vote that would have extended it further.
Some Republicans have already openly opposed aspects of Trump’s tariff agenda. For instance, in October of last year, four Republican senators — Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — joined Democrats in voting to terminate Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
Still, other Republicans, particularly those in districts affected by the tariffs, might fear an up-or-down vote on tariffs out of fear of stoking Trump’s ire and sparking a primary challenge next election cycle.
“I think there are many Republicans, especially in places like the industrial Midwest, who feel that the tariffs, Trump’s arbitrary tariffs, have punished their constituents rather than the country that they’re aimed at,” Bannon said.
Still, Democrats face their own divisions on Trump’s use of tariffs. Many in the party have long backed protectionist measures. Notably, President Joe Biden maintained tariffs on China that Trump had imposed in his first term.
“My view is there may be legislative efforts by the Democrats to reassert congressional authority over tariff policy, but I don’t see a wholesale Democratic effort to overturn the tariffs instituted by the Trump Administration,” said Dennis Shea, a former U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization who is now at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Trump’s most sweeping tariffs, implemented via the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were struck down in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, issued in February.
Since then, the Trump administration has announced new tariffs using different authorities, including three executive orders imposing 50% tariffs on various Canadian products.
Scott Lincicome, the vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute and an expert in trade policy, told the Washington Examiner he thinks tariff legislation from Democrats, if they win this week, will fall into three buckets.
First, Lincicome said that there might be some “pretty narrow” efforts to overturn existing tariffs.
The first, he said, would be to undo existing tariffs, such as those on Canadian goods.
“My guess is they might try to nix those, maybe throw in tariffs from any free trade agreement partner,” Lincicome told the Washington Examiner.
He said the second bucket relates to broader congressional oversight. Those bills would be a “congressional circuit breaker,” making it easier for Congress to block tariffs.
And finally, Lincicome said Congress could repeal specific laws that Trump has used to impose tariffs, such as Section 122.
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose temporary tariffs to protect the dollar and prevent imbalances in payments with other countries.
“In that kind of nitty-gritty space, they could also actually get into the laws themselves and say things like, ‘OK, the president should be able to impose tariffs for national security under Section 232, but the law is really poorly written, and we need to revise what a national security threat means,’” he added.
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives the president broad power to levy tariffs when there is a threat to national security.
Democrats’ overall approach is likely to hinge on the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
“I think part of that will depend on the size of the majority in the House and who controls more power in the chamber, the New Democrat coalition end of the party, or the Democratic Socialists of America end of the party,” Peter Loge, director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told the Washington Examiner.
Reinish said that a big win for Democrats could give Republicans “a lot of permission” to work on a bipartisan basis to tackle tariff policies.
“I think that you’re also going to see a lot of folks who, you know, are in the agriculture-rich Corn Belt, where diesel prices, fertilizer prices have been driven sky high,” Reinish said of Republican lawmakers in certain parts of the country.
The other factor is how hard Trump comes out against defections, Lincicome said.
“How much will Trump get out there and say anybody who votes for this Democrat bill is going to basically be on my hit list for as long as I’m alive,” he said.
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Still, there has already been some voter antipathy for tariffs in the northern states that do a lot of trade with Canada.
“Especially along the northern border — you’ve got a bunch of Republicans who’ve already expressed concern about tariffs,” Loge said. “Once this election is over, I think a lot of Republicans will be happy to join with what will then be a bipartisan coalition for a more nuanced approach to tariffs.”