Economic woes transform the Midwest into a massive midterms battleground

By Eric Bradner, Jeff Zeleny, CNN

Cincinnati (CNN) — Democrats could be poised for a revival in the heartland, as furor over high costs and doubt about President Donald Trump’s willingness to change the nation’s trajectory threaten to loosen the GOP’s grip on working-class voters.

A decade after the Trump era began, when he first turned Midwestern political battlegrounds into reliably Republican states, the fallout from policies of his second term have rippled through the agriculture sector and broader economies across the Great Plains and the Rust Belt.

Iowa and Ohio, which have not been competitive since former President Barack Obama was on the ballot, are in play. And ruby-red states like Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana are not exempt. The shift is happening up and down the ballot, with tight contests for the House, Senate and governor blanketing the middle of the country.

From spring planting to fall harvest, anxiety over Trump’s war with Iran and the fallout from his trade battles has turned into alarm.

In conversations across the region, voters point to the soaring cost of gas and diesel, as well as high grocery prices and interest rates. A whipsaw tariff policy has forced farmers to pay more for fertilizer, while some manufacturers, footing higher bills for imported components, have laid off workers. Trump’s decision to allow imported beef has infuriated ranchers. And spending cuts targeting healthcare and grant programs have caused further strain.

Promises to revitalize the nation’s manufacturing sector remain unfulfilled. And even before the Iran war sent costs soaring, several of these battleground states were in fiscal decline.

Iowa, for example, recorded the weakest annual growth rate in the country in 2025, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, a searing indictment for Republicans who have had control of state government for more than a decade.

“I think everybody in agriculture is tired, would be the best way to put it. They’re just tired,” Steve Kuiper, a farmer and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told CNN. “They feel very beat up right now, demoralized.”

It has all fueled a hunger for change — and created an opening for Democratic candidates.

“A lot of the promises the president made to bring costs down, to not start new foreign wars, to deliver on his economic message, have not come to fruition,” said Beau Bayh, the third-generation scion of Indiana’s most famous Democratic political family. If he wins his race for secretary of state, he’d be the first member of his party to win statewide in Indiana in 14 years.

Trump knows better than most presidents that midterm elections are a reflection — and referendum — on the party in power. He experienced it in 2018, when Republicans held control of the Senate but lost their majority in the House — including three seats in Iowa. GOP officials tell CNN they fear a repeat of that scenario.

The travel plans of both parties tell the tale, with Trump set to visit Michigan on Sunday after making stops in Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa in a monthlong campaign blitz. Obama traveled to Michigan and Ohio on Saturday, rallying support in two states he once won.

Polls suggest voters are willing to punish the Republicans in power in Washington, even though they also hold dim views of the Democratic brand.

“It’s not that they’ve been overwhelmed by the Democratic Party, it’s just that they’re really, really pissed off,” Tom Vilsack, a Democratic former Iowa governor, told CNN. “They want to send a message of disappointment. When you’re upset with someone, you want to find a way to send a message. You don’t swallow it, you send that message.”

Vilsack, who served two terms as agriculture secretary in the Obama administration, said economic frustrations across the agriculture and manufacturing sectors have been rising long before the Trump era. But he said the promises Trump made during his three campaigns, particularly when he pledged to bring prices down only two years ago, are feeding the anger.

“He builds up the hope that it’s going to be fundamentally different,” Vilsack said. “That was interpreted that he’s going to bring back the good times. He failed to do that.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was the last Republican to win that office in his reelection two decades ago, said Trump would be better off talking about rising costs and how he intends to change course.

“It’s going to be a blue wave,” Pawlenty told CNN. “We just don’t know if it’s knee-deep, waist-deep, or going to hit us right in the face.”

The House is all but certain to fall from GOP control, he said, but added: “The real chance for Republicans to salvage something out of this is to hang on to the Senate and that’s a real possibility.”

House and Senate in the balance

In Iowa and Ohio, Democrats have a shot at winning Senate races that are crucial to the net four-seat gain they need to claim a majority — a goal that eluded them in 2018. Their odds look even better in those states’ governor’s races, potentially giving the party a foothold in statehouses where Republicans have trifectas: control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

But the Democratic revival could extend even further. Megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton has the GOP scrambling to save the seat of Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas. An independent candidate, Dan Osborn, has rallied Democratic support and thrown a curveball into Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts’ bid for a second term in Nebraska.

And a slew of House seats across the Midwest held by Republicans are in play. Democrats believe they could win as many as three GOP-held seats each in Iowa and Ohio, plus potentially four more in Michigan. The party is also targeting an Omaha-based district in Nebraska and one in southeastern Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. If the election breaks in Democrats’ favor in a big way, another House seat in Nebraska, as well as one seat each in Indiana and Kansas, could also prove to be much more competitive than either party expected early in the 2026 election cycle.

Republicans aren’t conceding any of those races. And they believe they have Democrats on defense in the Upper Midwest — particularly Michigan, where progressive former public health official Abdul El-Sayed is locked in an expensive and bitter Senate race against Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers.

Speaking in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday, Trump urged voters to pretend he was on the ballot and vote to ensure a “booming Iowa economy.”

“If you get out and vote like you did in 2024, we win in a landslide, you know, we win in a landslide,” he said

Even as the president boasts of America’s golden age, with an economy envied by the world, he also makes clear he understands the challenges people are facing. At most every stop along the way of his red-state October blitz, he has offered sweeteners to voters if they stick with Republican candidates.

From $8 billion in new aid to farmers announced in Kansas to promises of building the nation’s largest steel plant in eastern Iowa to a commitment he made in Nebraska to temporarily ease diesel costs, Trump has made a series of pledges that follow his offer of giving every adult American $5,000 if Republicans retain their grip on Washington. The promises are barely even repeated by GOP candidates, who know they ring hollow with many voters.

Democrats acknowledge the uphill climb for winning all of the narrowly divided Senate races across the Midwest, particularly given their own brand and favorability challenges. But Republican officials wonder whether Trump’s extensive travels to many of these states will backfire on down-ballot races.

“When our leader, the president himself, does things that make me cringe, that’s difficult to tell people to vote for me,” said Jim Howell, a Republican member of the Sedgwick County Board of Commissioners in Wichita, who is also on the November ballot. “I really wish we had leaders that don’t make us cringe, but help us consider a way to come together.”

Trump’s closing message

A question hanging over the final week of the race is whether Trump’s relentless campaigning has awakened Republican voters to rally to his aid one last time in hopes of closing an enthusiasm gap. Iowa could be a place to watch, given Trump’s long history of winning there and his decision to hold two rallies in opposite corners of the state in the homestretch.

But the president’s approach, a little more than one week from Election Day, has been to double down on the policies that have led many voters to sour on his second term.

In Trump’s Sunday trip to Michigan, he’ll hold a rally at Port Huron — on the Canadian border. It will put on display his tariff battle with the United States’ northern neighbor, even though the party’s Senate nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, has attempted to break with Trump over the tariffs.

“Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war — now,” Rogers said in a television ad his campaign launched this month.

The GOP’s best hope might be to lean into the cultural battles that have helped them win over White, rural, working-class voters in recent elections. In Michigan, both Trump and Rogers have attempted to brand the Democratic nominee, El-Sayed, as supportive of extremist Islamist interests.

But Democrats are fighting back. El-Sayed in recent days began airing an ad that features clips of Republicans and conservative media figures, including Fox News hosts, saying nice or helpful things about him and his campaign.

Before those clips play, he lists issues where he suggests common cause with some in the MAGA movement, such as releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and combatting Washington corruption.

Ohio is another headache for Republicans. The party’s nominee for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, faced sharp criticism from the man he is running to replace, two-term GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, for airing a controversial advertisement featuring the mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.

Both Ramaswamy and the president have dug in, defending the ad — and in doing so have turned the race into a test of whether voters will accept Trumpian tactics from candidates who are not Trump.

And what’s receded from the forefront is the issue Ohio voters who spoke with CNN in recent days — including Republicans who support Ramaswamy — said is responsible for the state’s sudden competitiveness: the cost of living.

“We all have to get gas. I have to go get gas right now in my car, and that’s difficult,” said Sheri Vorherr, a 55-year-old mother of five from Loveland who volunteered at a Ramaswamy rally in Cincinnati on Wednesday. She said she helps her oldest daughter buy groceries each week and sees the economic pinch brought on by inflation.

“I don’t think it’s an easy fix. I think it’s things that are going to take time,” she said. “I do believe Trump is trying to do that — it’s just taking a lot longer.”

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CNN’s Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.