National elections are mostly fought and viewed through a national lens, and 2026 is no different. From one state to the next, candidates and parties are mostly fighting over the same few issues, while the state of the national economy and performance of the sitting president shape the larger electoral climate in which these individual contests are taking place. But the U.S. remains a large and diverse country, with different groups and interests distributed unevenly across the map. Topics of specific local concern can still arise here and there, with potentially decisive effects if the race is tight.
On Wednesday, Michigan’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Mike Rogers, released a new television ad in which he breaks with President Trump’s trade policy by saying that “here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now.” Rogers’s ad raises the question of whether the Trump-instigated trade war with Canada is especially unpopular or politically salient in parts of the U.S. that abut the northern border. Residents of those places might be especially affected by the tariffs because of close economic ties and cross-border commerce, but also retain familiarity and positive associations with Canada that counteract Trump’s attempts at demonizing the country.
The Canadian tariffs have also become an issue in Alaska, where incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan has tried to navigate between his support for Trump’s trade policy and the resultant economic effects that have even damaged his brother’s manufacturing business. In Maine, where the fraying U.S.-Canadian relationship has not only increased consumer prices but also weakened the state’s tourism industry, five-term senator Susan Collins has been openly critical of the trade war with Canada. In a debate this week, Collins took credit for convincing the Trump administration to omit concrete, wood pulp, and road salt from the list of goods subject to the tariffs, prompting her Democratic challenger Troy Jackson to retort, “What about everything else? We can’t eat road salt.”
Covering the northern region of the state, Maine’s mostly rural 2nd congressional district supported Trump over Kamala Harris by a 10-point margin in 2024. When moderate incumbent Democrat Jared Golden, who won re-election by less than 3,000 votes, announced his retirement, most election observers assumed that the seat would easily flip to the Republicans in 2026. But polls are finding a surprisingly close race to succeed Golden. Republican nominee Paul LePage, a former governor of Maine, also broke with Trump’s policy towards Canada during a debate this week, claiming that he didn’t support the president’s tariffs “as currently structured” while arguing that “we need to de-escalate the rhetoric” and resume negotiations toward a trade deal.
In New York’s 21st district, covering the rural Adirondack region, Democratic nominee Blake Gendebien leads Republican opponent Anthony Constantino by 3 percentage points according to a new poll from Siena College—another abnormally strong North Country overperformance for a Democratic candidate. (Trump carried the 21st district by 20 points in 2024, while outgoing Republican incumbent Elise Stefanik won re-election by 24.) There are other developments making this race unusually competitive, but it seems very possible that tensions with Canada are a much greater concern to voters there than elsewhere in the nation. We may not be able to determine with confidence how heavily the tariffs will affect local dynamics in 2026, but it’s one more factor to consider in what’s become a fascinating campaign.