ANALYSIS: Five of nine key Senate races border Canada, and Trump’s tariffs weigh on them

Canadian lumber in Livonia

A lumberyard in August

Stacks of Canadian lumber in a lumberyard in Livonia, Michigan. The photo was taken in August. The Los Angeles Times ran it on September 25, 2026, above a story about the Senate.

You can almost smell the resin. You can hear the forklift backing up. The beep. The dull thud of a pallet set down.

Wood. A border. And, six weeks out from the vote, a question of seats: Democrats need four to take the Senate.

Four. Hold on to that number. It is the unit of this piece.

Eleven out of thirteen

On September 9, the firm Engagious sat down with thirteen Michigan swing voters. Eleven said the trade war was hurting their state, the Los Angeles Times reports.

One of them put it plainly: “The more we put tariffs on stuff, the more they put tariffs on stuff.” Prices, the voter added, will end up going up for everyone.

This is not a poll. It is a table, some chairs, a microphone. But it is a sentence you could hear, word for word, on this side of the border.

The lumber crosses the border. So does the argument.

Fifty-three to forty-seven

The vice president’s math

The Senate has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats, the Washington Post notes on September 26.

A tie is not enough for Democrats. The vice president, a Republican, breaks 50–50 votes. So they need 51 seats.

Fifty-one minus forty-seven. Four.

And those four seats have to be won without losing a single one. Above all, not in Michigan or New Hampshire, the Los Angeles Times points out.

They need Michigan. They need New Hampshire. They need Georgia, where Jon Ossoff holds the seat. They need four Republican seats. They need to lose nothing along the way.

That’s a lot. It is now within reach. Hold. Flip. Keep.

Hold first, then flip

Holding every seat and taking four from Republicans once looked out of reach. The Washington Post now judges the goal doable.

The paper credits the shift to Donald Trump’s unpopularity and to voters’ frustration with the economy.

Hold first. Flip second. The two verbs don’t weigh the same: you hold where you are at home, you flip on the other side’s turf.

Four seats to flip, none to lose.

Five borders out of nine

Alaska, Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine

Here is the fact that American electoral maps never draw.

Of the 9 states most likely to decide control of the Senate, 5 border Canada, the Los Angeles Times writes. Alaska. Ohio. Michigan. New Hampshire. Maine.

Two more, Texas and Iowa, do substantial trade with Canada, according to the same paper.

So that makes seven out of nine where Canada is no abstract neighbor. It is a customer. A supplier. A road. A tourist.

Maine touches Quebec. So does New Hampshire. Michigan looks across at Windsor. Alaska touches the Yukon.

The border votes too

Here is what that map reveals. The trade war Donald Trump is waging on Canada is now being paid for in the United States as well. At the ballot box. In the states that live off the border.

I take no side between the two American parties. I take Canada’s side, its sovereignty against tariff coercion. And I note that this coercion is costing the people who defend it, right where the border is closest.

The border votes too.

Five borders in nine races. Canada is on the ballot.

Twenty billion, then the bans

Late August, the breakdown

The acts need to be put back in order.

In July, Donald Trump threatened new 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods. The two countries opened talks. The talks collapsed in late August. Washington then imposed tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Ottawa hit back. Tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American goods took effect on September 8, according to the same paper.

Among the products targeted by Canada’s retaliation: iron and steel from Ohio, according to the CBC, as cited by the Los Angeles Times. Ohio, as it happens, is one of the five border states.

Dairy and liquor, next week

Trump answered with import bans on some Canadian products, including certain alcohol and dairy products. They are set to take effect next week, the Los Angeles Times writes.

On Wednesday, September 23, on Truth Social, the president went after Canada again. He denounced “a Liberal takeover that will end very badly,” according to the paper. He also claimed, inaccurately, that the country is letting in “millions and millions” of immigrants.

July, the threat. August, the breakdown. September, the retaliation. October, the bans.

A tariff. A retaliation. A ban. An insult.

Every stage of the trade war lands mid-campaign.

Sixty-four percent of independents

Against new tariffs

Canada does not vote in the United States. Independents do.

According to an Economist/YouGov poll cited by the Los Angeles Times, a majority of Americans oppose raising tariffs on Canadian goods, including 64% of independents.

In a late-August Ipsos poll, only 14% of independents said they supported new tariffs on Canada, according to the same source. Fourteen out of a hundred. That’s not much.

Sixty-eight in Michigan

In Michigan, 68% of independent voters disapprove of the tariffs. The figure comes from a Washington Post–Schar School poll published this month, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Those are exactly the voters a candidate cannot afford to lose in a close race.

Rusty Hills teaches at the University of Michigan. He once chaired the state Republican Party. He told the paper bluntly: “It doesn’t make things easier. It’s not helping.”

A former party chair. Not an opponent.

A Maine Republican strategist, Lance Dutson, says the trade war puts “another log on the fire” of affordability, according to the paper.

Tariffs get voted on by people who never chose them.

Two seats to hold

Michigan, 49 to 44

On September 24, the Siena Research Institute, working with the New York Times, released three polls of likely voters.

In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed leads Republican Mike Rogers, 49% to 44%.

In New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas leads Republican John Sununu, 50% to 45%.

Two states they cannot lose

Don Levy, who runs the institute, calls them two states Democrats absolutely have to keep. He sees slim five-point leads.

Slim. Five points. Twice. Five points is the margin of one bad week.

Two borders, two seats Democrats already hold, two fragile leads. Neither state brings Democrats any closer to the four seats they need to flip. They only keep them from sliding back.

In Michigan, Mike Rogers says he favors “good” tariffs that help the state and opposes “bad” ones that hurt it, the Los Angeles Times reports. A fine line to walk.

Holding two seats already means defending two borders.

Iowa, by eight points

Fifty to forty-two

In Iowa, the Marist Poll released a clear-cut result on September 22.

Democrat Josh Turek leads Republican Ashley Hinson, 50% to 42%, among registered voters. The poll surveyed 1,050 voters from September 17 to 20, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 points.

In the same poll, 58% of Iowa voters disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing. And 46% say their family finances have gotten worse over the past year.

A plurality of voters say their vote for Congress will mostly be a vote against the president, according to Marist. On the generic House ballot, the Democrat leads by five points.

Voting Turek, betting on Hinson

And yet the same poll carries its own rebuttal. Whatever their own choice, 59% of voters think Hinson will win, against 37% for Turek.

An eight-point gap. The opposite bet. They say they will vote for one. They bet on the other.

An eight-point lead in a poll is not a seat. Marist makes the point in its own way: faith in a Republican win is still holding.

A poll hands out the lead. Iowa keeps its doubts.

Collins holds Maine

Forty-nine to forty-six

Now for the fact that cuts against this reading. It costs this piece something.

In Maine, a border state, Republican incumbent Susan Collins leads Democrat Troy Jackson, 49% to 46%, according to Siena. The poll was taken before new allegations against the senator, Don Levy notes.

Three points. For the Republican. If the trade war were flattening everything, Collins would not be ahead.

Republican strategist Jim Merrill, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, points to the region’s independent streak. Tying a candidate to Trump has often worked less well there than elsewhere.

Road salt and cement

But Collins did what the White House did not: she put distance between herself and the tariffs. She warned the White House and, this month, won an exemption for road salt and cement, the Los Angeles Times reports. She told Politico the administration had “very much underestimated” the effect of the tariffs on people in Maine.

In New Hampshire, John Sununu says a trade war with Canada “doesn’t make any sense.” He says he is ready to back a law that would rein in the president’s tariff power, according to the same paper.

It is true: border Republicans can hold. And it does not change this: they hold by breaking with the president on Canada.

Collins leads by turning her back on tariffs.

Consumers will barely notice

The White House argument

Here is the most serious objection, in the words of those who would make it.

Donald Trump argues that Canada has “been ripping off” the United States for a long time and that tariffs will help American manufacturers, the Los Angeles Times reports.

A Tax Foundation economist, Alex Durante, points the same way. In his view, these tariffs probably won’t change much for consumers. The costs are concentrated in a handful of industries.

The argument holds. Partly. If the price doesn’t move, why would the voter?

Six percent

Because the price moves where it counts. By Durante’s own account, the heaviest costs fall on autos and manufacturing, dairy, and alcohol and spirits.

Because Michigan builds cars. Because dairy is exactly what the bans target.

Because there is a precedent. Canada’s counter-tariffs last year pushed up the price of the affected goods by 6%. That is the finding of a study in the Journal of Monetary Economics, cited by the paper.

Because doubt is enough. The impression that tariffs push prices up can turn off voters already worried about inflation, Durante adds.

And yet the White House is staying the course.

Prices barely move. Voters do.

The map gets wider

Kansas and South Carolina

On September 23, the Cook Political Report shifted three races toward Democrats, Axios reports. Kansas moved from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.” South Carolina, from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.” In Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff’s seat went from “Lean Democrat” to “Likely Democrat.”

Three races. One direction. According to Axios, 6 Republican seats are now rated by Cook as a toss-up or better for Democrats. Last month, Cook had already moved the Texas and Iowa races.

Axios points to voter discontent over gas prices, the cost of living and the handling of the war in Iran. Tight races in Republican strongholds could force the party to spend beyond the usual battlegrounds, the site adds.

Fifty-eight point six

On September 14, Nate Silver’s model gave Democrats a 58.6% chance of taking the Senate. Eight days earlier, it was 50.6%, Newsweek reports. Polls in Texas, Ohio and Michigan explain the move.

In Ohio, another border state, an InsiderAdvantage poll puts former Democratic senator Sherrod Brown ahead of Republican senator Jon Husted, 47% to 42%, according to Newsweek. Husted, for his part, says the public “would like to understand the strategy behind what the president’s trying to do,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

A probability is not a result. A probability is not a vote. Fifty-eight is not much better than a coin toss.

The map gets wider. The coin is still in the air.

A vineyard up for sale

Thirty-five percent down

Some numbers no pollster publishes. The Los Angeles Times flags one, on the margins of its story.

In California, a 3,500-acre family vineyard is up for sale. Its exports to Canada fell 35% in a year, under the Canadian boycott, according to the paper.

Thirty-five percent. A family. Land for sale. A customer lost.

California is not a border state. It is proof that the border also runs through the wine cellars.

The border we no longer cross

On the other side, there is us.

Canadians who stopped traveling to the United States last year are vowing to hold firm, the paper reports. Across the line, American tourism ads keep telling them “We love Canada.”

The Maine cottage nobody rented this summer. The California bottle left on the shelf. The tank of gas no longer filled in Vermont. Many people here made a gesture without believing it would count.

I’ll admit it: I didn’t think a consumer boycott would end up in an analysis of the Senate. It has.

Our shopping choices crossed the border. They show up in the polls.

What fifty-one seats would change

Reining in tariff power

A Senate does not sign tariffs. But it can pass laws that rein them in. Rein in. Not abolish.

That is what John Sununu, a Republican candidate, says he would support, according to the Los Angeles Times.

That is the Canadian stake in this American election. Not a party win. A majority, whatever its color, willing to limit a president’s power to tax an ally on his own.

A tightrope

“It’s a tightrope, there’s no question,” Rusty Hills told the paper. Republican candidates are looking for wiggle room on the war, prices and tariffs on Canada. They need every independent voter.

In Alaska, Senator Dan Sullivan has largely steered clear of the issue, while Democrats use it against him, the paper reports.

Democrats, for their part, are seizing on the Canada file to tie Republican candidates to the president. With varying success from state to state, analysts quoted by the Los Angeles Times note.

And yet the election is on November 3, Newsweek reminds readers. Until then, none of this is settled.

Fifty-one seats can rein in a tariff. First they have to be won.

Four seats, five borders

The math, at the end

Four seats to flip. Two to hold in Michigan and New Hampshire. A lead in Iowa that voters themselves don’t believe in. A Republican senator leading in Maine by pushing back on tariffs.

The reading holds. Tariff coercion against Canada does not decide the Senate on its own. It weighs on five of the nine races that will.

Our share of it

Are we ready to accept that our next trade thaw depends on a vote in Michigan rather than a negotiation in Ottawa?

The lumber in Livonia, in the August photo, has no opinion. The people who buy it do.

Four seats to flip. Five races along our border.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Siena Research Institute — Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire polls, September 24, 2026
• Marist Poll — the 2026 midterm elections in Iowa, September 22, 2026
• Los Angeles Times — the Canada trade war in Senate races, September 25, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Washington Post — a Senate map tilting toward Democrats, September 26, 2026
• Axios — Cook Political Report shifts three races, September 23, 2026
• Newsweek — Democrats’ Senate odds in Nate Silver’s forecast, September 15, 2026