In today’s edition … Trump’s tariffs come for the midterms … The New Hampshire primary is in the books — one more primary to go … but first …
The big news
President Donald Trump took a rare loss at the Supreme Court.
Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh let stand a lower court order blocking a Missouri congressional map that had been designed to give Republicans an additional House seat later this year, my colleague Justin Jouvenal reported. The decision allows the state to put a referendum on the November ballot that would ask voters whether to use the Republican-backed map in the future. Shortly after the decision, a federal judge in a separate case ruled that the state had to use the GOP map; that decision is likely to soon come before the Supreme Court.
How Canada, with elbows up, could hurt Trump
If you had told me in 2024 that a rift between the United States and Canada would directly affect the 2026 midterms, I would have called you crazy.
And I would have been wrong.
Trump’s fight with our neighbor to the north — a constant over the course of his second term with a focus on trade — has turned ugly in recent weeks. Just yesterday, after Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, Trump escalated the fight by pledging to ban imports of some Canadian alcohol, motorcycles, molasses and other products starting later this month, in several proclamations.
Trump has rekindled this fight by signing an order changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, threatening to impose a 50 percent tariff on Canadian cars, car parts and steel next year (in addition to the 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods levied last month), and suggesting he will ban the sale of Canadian Bombardier jets in response to the nation’s counter-tariffs. The fight has also grown personal, with Trump posting an AI-generated image of himself, clad in hockey gear, checking Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and calling him “governor,” a nod to Trump’s movement suggesting the nation could become the U.S.’s 51st state.
“The Canadian officials have treated us very badly,” Trump said last month. “They’re nasty people.”
This fight is not happening in a political vacuum. Republicans in Kansas have publicly worried that the president’s comments about Bombardier, which employs more than a thousand in Wichita, could hurt the state. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, wrote on Xthat he contacted the Trump administration to “make certain the President is aware of the significant contributions of Bombardier to Kansas and the importance of its presence in Wichita.”
The fight could also have an outsize impact on three key Senate races this cycle — contests in Maine, New Hampshire and Michigan. All three states border Canada and benefit from cross-border business.
Trump’s actions and comments have put Republicans in these three states on the defensive, forcing them to balance loyalty to their party’s standard-bearer with the close ties the states they hope to represent enjoy with their northern neighbors.
Two of the Republican nominees in these states — former senator John Sununu in New Hampshire and Sen. Susan Collins in Maine — have broken with the president over the fight.
“This is not China we’re dealing with; it’s Canada — our best friend, a country with whom our economy is completely intertwined,” Collins said last month, lamenting the way Trump has treated the nation.
“It doesn’t make any sense to engage in a trade war with Canada,” Sununu told WMUR in August. “They’re one of our closest allies. An important trading partner for New Hampshire. A source of tourism for New Hampshire. So, I don’t think that … the trade war with Canada makes any sense at all.”
Mike Schrimpf, Sununu’s spokesperson, added in a statement to The Washington Post that the Republican “believes it makes no sense to start a trade war with our closest neighbor,” calling Canada “an important and valued trading partner for New Hampshire.”
That has not been the position former congressman Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Senate nominee, has taken.
Rogers, in a statement provided to The Washington Post, said Trump “is right to put America First — and tariffs are necessary, but are not a one-size-fits-all solution.”
“Once again, Michiganders are forced to bear the consequences of failed leadership from our Democratic officials in Washington,” he said, blaming Democrats for the fight that Trump started and for allowing “jobs to disappear by the hundreds of thousands.”
These differences are telling. Republicans like Collins and Sununu have looked for ways to subtly break with Trump — in part because Kamala Harris won their states in 2024. Rogers, by contrast, is running in a state Trump won nearly two years ago, and he has worked to stay on the side of the president after being a vocal critic following the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost.
Democrats have, as expected, lambasted their Republican opponents for Trump’s fight with Canada.
Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate nominee in New Hampshire, told me that he recently went to a festival that was just a few miles from the state’s northern border with Canada.
“Everyone was mentioning it,” he said of the administration’s fight with Canada. “People have a strong affinity for Canadians and relationships on both sides of the border. We welcome Canadian visitors during the summer months and the winter months, and all of that is being disrupted. People take that incredibly personally in New Hampshire.”
Pappas is not wrong. According to the U.S. Travel Association, Canadian tourists generated over $20 billion in spending during travel to the United States. CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster, recently reported that the travel association now believes tourism to the U.S. declined by nearly $6 billion in 2025, mostly due to the loss of Canadian visitors.
That, says Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson, is a big issue for the state he hopes to represent.
“We’ve been losing tourism in Maine for the last two years. It’s really quite striking,” Jackson said on MS NOW in late August. The former state Senate president is from Allagash, Maine, a town that nearly abuts the Canadian border. “And little communities up where I live depend on that cross-border shopping,” Jackson said. “They’re not coming.”
“It is stupid,” Jackson concluded. “These broad-based tariffs are killing the state, and it’s going to be hard to put it back together.”
And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running in the state’s open Senate race against Rogers, has repeatedly used the Canada issue to tie the Republican to Trump.
“He’s caught between knowing full well that these tariffs are bad for Michiganders and having to appeal to Daddy Trump every single time he opens his mouth,” El-Sayed said on CNN. “And guess what he’s going to pick every single time? He’s going to pick Trump over you.”
Campaigns are rarely decided by foreign policy issues. In this case, however, the trade war with Canada is affecting people’s finances — and in some cases, has voters worried about their livelihoods.
It’s also worth remembering that these races are all likely to be very close, and any niche issue could tilt the result.
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Our picks
- Cancer’s toll on 9/11 survivors is accelerating 25 years later, from Daniel Wu and Chris Hacker.
- GOP indulges Trump with two-day pep rally, putting him right where Democrats want him, from Isaac Arnsdorf.
- Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to Natalie Harp, two other close aides, from Cat Zakrzewski and Aaron Schaffer.
- Honoring 9/11 heroes, Trump repeats disputed account of his role in recovery, from Cat Zakrzewski.
- These are the most important House races to watch in November, from Mariana Alfaro, Anna Liss-Roy and Eric Lau.
- Smithsonian chief to retire as Trump fights to reshape the institution, from Jonathan Edwards.
- Citing ‘ethnic cleansing,’ U.K. bars imports from Israeli West Bank settlements, from Steve Hendrix.
What we’re watching
The stage is set for an interesting November in New Hampshire.
Sununu, the former Republican senator, will face off against Pappas, the Democratic congressman, in the state’s U.S. Senate contest. And Trump’s candidate in the state’s most competitive congressional race, Republican Anthony DiLorenzo, won in his crowded primary.
But the tightest and more compelling race of the night was Stefany Shaheen, a former Portsmouth City Council member and the daughter of the retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, defeating Maura Sullivan, a Marine Corps veteran and former Obama administration official.
The race, as we highlighted yesterday, represented the last gasp of dynastic politics in a primary season largely defined by deep anti-establishment fervor.
Sullivan closed the campaign with an all-out attack against Shaheen’s last name. “I’m Maura Sullivan. I approve this message because Stephanie Shaheen thinks she’s entitled to your vote. I know I have to earn it,” Sullivan says in an ad running in New Hampshire.
But that, and considerable outside spending for both candidates, was not enough to overcome Shaheen’s connection to the state — yes, as the daughter of a Democratic icon in New Hampshire, but also as someone who had built a business in the state and become a vocal health advocate.
Shaheen will now face DiLorenzo in a race that prognosticators believe favors the Democrat.
In your local paper
Dallas Morning News: Gas prices hit a Labor Day high this week, pushed to highs “thanks to the Iran war and refinery issues.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune: The world’s largest spaceport is set to be built along a fragile stretch of Louisiana coast known as the Vermilion Parish. What the project means for that coastline’s restoration is an open question.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Hurricane Lowell rocked Hawaii yesterday, with officials in Kauai ordering residents to shelter in place as the island was pummeled with “heavy rain, powerful winds, life-threatening surf and even the threat of tornadoes.”
From you
Maybe this was a silly question — but we asked whether you find yourself tuning into politics news more after Labor Day.
None of you said “yes.”
“I think about politics the same for all the year,” wrote John Thompson.
“It would be impossible for me to get MORE political after Labor Day,” added Michael J. Lowrey.
And Rick Prescott said, “When I was working, this might have been so. There was what I considered more important stuff to deal with. But since I retired, and especially since Trump got more involved, I pay attention all year round.”
Thanks for tuning in.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Republican Senate campaign will begin airing an attack ad this week that features an AI-generated James Talarico, his Democratic opponent. How do you feel about the use of AI-generated images or video in political ads? Do you think that it’s fair? Should campaigns have to disclose when they use AI in ads? Let me and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
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