Seven in 10 Americans say Donald Trump’s tariffs have led them to pay higher prices, according to a new survey exclusive to The Guardian.
The Harris Poll presents Republicans with a major problem in the battle for the upcoming midterm elections. A majority of all voters (72%) believe Trump’s tariffs have had a negative impact rather than a positive one, and 67% said tariffs are not the right solution to improve the economy.
However, Trump has made clear that he wants to move forward with more tariffs even after a Supreme Court ruling halted many of the taxes he introduced last year.
Trump’s signature economic policy receives poor marks across the political spectrum:
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64% of Republicans agreed that Trump’s tariffs had led to higher prices compared to 77% of Democrats and 67% of independents who believed the same.
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60% of Republicans also said the tariffs had had more of a negative than positive impact on consumers, compared to 81% of Democrats and 75% of independents.
Americans are seeing the biggest impact on labels at grocery stores: 57% say tariffs have negatively affected grocery prices. This is in line with recent economic data that showed grocery prices rose 3.1% between February 2025 and February 2026, faster than the overall pace of inflation. Beef and coffee, two food industries that have been hit hard by tariffs, have seen huge increases since last year, up 14% and 18%, respectively.
The survey was conducted by Harris Poll in late February, before the United States and Israel started a war with Iran and sent oil prices soaring.
While most voters disapprove of Trump’s tariffs, a clear partisan divide remains. Large majorities of Democrats (81%) and independents (68%) agreed that tariffs are not the right solution for the economy, compared to 53% of Republicans who said the same.
Republicans are also more optimistic about the economy overall. Nearly half (49%) of Republican respondents said they believe the economy is improving, while only 18% of Democrats and independents said the same.
Conservatives are also more patient with Trump’s tariffs: 80% said they were open to seeing whether tariffs could positively affect the economy in 2026, compared with 46% of Democrats and 53% of independents.
A clear majority of Republicans (69%) said the tariffs had brought back manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, 46% of Democrats and 38% of independents believed manufacturing jobs will never recover, compared to just 13% of Republicans who said the same.
This divide may pose a challenge for Republicans in the midterm elections as they try to convince independent swing voters that their party has been in step with the rising cost of living, despite clear negative sentiment around the tariffs.
When Trump won re-election in 2024, a small but critical mass of independent-leaning voters showed up for him at the polls. Trump had spent much of his campaign criticizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their record on inflation and vowed to turn around the economy.
At the same time, Trump was always adamant that tariffs were the answer to America’s problem, calling it the “most beautiful” word in the dictionary.
Even as inflation and unemployment were hitting their lowest levels last spring, Trump enthusiastically announced a historic series of tariffs, imposing levies on virtually all imports entering the country. Many of these tariffs have been reversed or nullified by a recent Supreme Court ruling, but Trump has promised to keep the tariffs in place.
“It was tariffs that made America strong and powerful in generations past, and it is tariffs that are making our country stronger, safer, and richer than ever,” Trump wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in January.
Since February, Trump has announced a new 15% global benchmark tariff that he plans to implement. According to the court ruling, the tariffs can only last a maximum of 150 days. On Wednesday, the White House also announced that it had opened trade investigations with foreign countries, a process that could lead to even more new tariffs.
This survey was conducted online within the United States for the Harris poll from February 26 to 28 2026, among a nationally representative sample of 2,138 American adults.
