Jim Hartman
The first early electoral tests of President Trump’s second-term occurred in Florida and Wisconsin on April 1. Republicans should be alarmed.
Democratic voters are more energized than Republican voters.
In Florida, Republicans expanded their narrow 218-213 House majority by taking two safely-Republican vacant seats.
The GOP won in the First District by only 15 points, after having won the seat in November by 32 points. A Republican won the Sixth District by just 14 points, after the GOP won in November by 33 points.
But the election outcome in the evenly divided battleground state of Wisconsin was the most notable.
Trump carried Wisconsin last November by a razor-thin margin of 0.9% over Kamala Harris. And, in Wisconsin’s Senate race, incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin eked-out re-election over Republican Eric Hovde by an equivalent 0.9% margin.
The big event April 1 was the Wisconsin Supreme Court race where Democrats solidified their 4-3 progressive majority. The Democrat-endorsed candidate, Susan Crawford, won handily, 55% to 45%, over the Republican, Brad Schimel.
Crawford’s 10-point win came despite Elon Musk and GOP groups outspending Democrats $53.4 million to $45.2 million.
Musk’s major financial and personal involvement in the Wisconsin race was a political liability for the GOP, boosting votes for Democrats more than Republicans.
While Musk’s work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, fires up Trump’s MAGA base, general election voters are critical of him.
A recent Fox News Poll found 40% of voters approve of Musk’s work with DOGE, while 58% disapprove. A CNN poll found 53% of Americans hold an unfavorable opinion of Musk, while 35% view him positively.
Republicans might not want Musk being the frontman the way he was in Wisconsin.
While Wisconsin Republicans were routed in the Supreme Court race, there was a silver lining in the Badger State. Voters incorporated voter ID requirements into the state constitution.
The Voter ID Amendment says “no qualified elector may cast a ballot in any election unless the elector presents valid photographic identification that verifies the elector’s identity.”
Wisconsin has required ID to vote since 2016 through a legislative statute. The amendment means lawmakers can’t change it. The measure passed with 63% of the vote, and many of Crawford’s Democratic voters supported the Voter ID Amendment.
A Gallup poll in October found an overwhelming 84% of Americans support the requirement to show a picture ID at the polls.
Last November, 73.3% of Nevada voters supported Question 7, the state constitutional amendment sponsored by Gov. Joe Lombardo requiring voter ID. If passed again in 2026, Nevadans will enshrine Voter ID in the Nevada Constitution.
On April 2, President Trump unveiled his new “Liberation Day” tariffs. He said there would be “a little disturbance” from them.
Trump put up a wall between the U.S. economy and the rest of the world, and the stock market tanked. It resulted in an epic two-day selloff destroying $6.6 trillion in market value.
Trump’s massive new protectionist tariffs are “reciprocal” in name only. He’s hitting every nation in the world with a 10% “baseline” tariff to sell in the U.S. market.
Worse is the bizarre, slapdash way the White House calculates the additional tariff rates on individual countries.
China and other countries announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s chief trade adviser, is boasting about tariffs raising $6 trillion over 10 years. That amounts to a $6 trillion tax increase paid largely by American consumers.
The problem for Republicans is that Trump was elected to stop inflation.
An April 1 Wall Street Journal poll found 15% more voters had a negative view of Trump’s handling of inflation than a positive one (55%-40%). And 54% oppose his tariff policy with 42% supporting it.
Trump owns the economy now – and the effects of his tariff wild ride.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.