Nearly three weeks in, President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has sent economic and political shockwaves around the world while barely shifting the domestic political landscape.
Most Americans oppose the war and want it ended as quickly as possible, but Republican voters — especially self-identified MAGA supporters — remain united behind the president despite outspoken dissent from some figures on the far right. Trump’s net job approval rating remains firmly in negative territory, at -15 percentage points (40% approve vs. 55% disapprove), according to an average of recent polls, as do public views of his handling of the economy (-19 points) and inflation (-24 points).
Voters overwhelmingly expect the war to carry a steep price tag, raising gasoline prices and the overall cost of living. Importers also warn that the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz could fuel inflation across the broad, eventually leading to higher food prices.
Trump has signaled that he is ready to bring the war to a speedy end, but his decision to postpone a visit to Beijing, previously scheduled to begin March 31, suggests he expects hostilities to continue at least until then. Some administration officials appear to believe U.S. involvement and the broader instability in the Middle East could last until September, even if the conflict shifts to a lower-intensity phase. In the meantime, Trump’s focus on Iran threatens to set back other parts of his legacy-building foreign policy agenda, diverting attention from peace efforts in Gaza and handing Russia a minor windfall from loosened restrictions on oil sales, initially designed to help bring about a Ukraine ceasefire.
As the operation drags on, major questions remain unresolved, including the administration’s overarching military objectives (which 62% of the public believe were never properly articulated), the likelihood of ground troop deployment (opposed by 64% of voters, including 36% of MAGA supporters, a plurality), and the possibility of terrorist attacks on domestic soil (which 77% consider very or somewhat likely). The larger political question is whether Democrats can turn their critique of an unauthorized, strategically incoherent, and costly “war of choice” into a forward-looking campaign message that connects foreign policy to voters’ deeper anxiety about rising prices, economic drift, and a presidency that increasingly looks both reckless and overextended.
Rarely does a single technology become a potent electoral issue (rural electrification in the 1930s is one such example). This year, AI is emerging as a true kitchen-table issue in a midterm election dominated by cost-of-living concerns, acting as a proxy for rising power bills, white-collar job anxiety, and an increasingly uneven distribution of economic gains and political influence stemming from America’s tech boom.
A majority of voters, 57%, believe risks of AI outweigh its benefits, and 63% expect the technology to reduce overall employment. Republican voters seem more willing to trust AI than Democrats, 41% to 36%, but neither party holds a clear advantage on public perceptions of its ability to manage AI. In fact, a plurality of voters, 33%, say they trust neither Republican nor Democratic Party to do a good job on the issue.
The second Trump administration has made an explicit bet on AI as a pillar of economic revival, pairing the language of national strength and competition with China with a deregulatory, pro-buildout agenda designed to speed infrastructure deployment and reduce regulatory friction.
House Republicans tried to impose a 10-year moratorium on state laws limiting or regulating AI models as part of President Trump’s 2025 tax-and-spending package. Trump later signed an executive order aimed at overriding “onerous” state AI laws, undercutting AI safety efforts in Republican-led legislatures such as Utah and Ohio even though blue states like California and New York are likely to be the primary targets.
In Congress, support for AI guardrails has been notably bipartisan, including an emerging set of proposals focused on the technology’s effects on the economy and workforce. Heading into the midterms, that creates an opening for populist “pay your fair share” arguments already being tested by both parties: Trump recently announced a commitment from major tech companies to fund the power plants and grid upgrades needed for their data centers, while Democrats such as Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger have linked affordability, utility costs, and data center expansion more directly.
The donor landscape is similarly cross-partisan. AI money is already entering the midterms, although it is backing rival policy camps rather than a specific party or “pro-AI” candidates more generally. On one side are frontier labs, venture capital, and industry-backed groups like Leading the Future seeking a single national framework permissive enough to prevent a patchwork of state rules. On the other are groups like Anthropic-backed Public First willing to fund candidates who favor guardrails, state flexibility, and more visible public constraints.
At least for now, the pro-acceleration side appears better capitalized, but the guardrails side may have the stronger public-facing argument, driven in part by rising uncertainty over how much AI is contributing to the softening U.S. job market. Regardless, AI is now firmly part of the political landscape, and the way it resonates in this year’s midterms will offer a preview of how both parties may frame and fight over it in the 2028 presidential race.
By late April, the U.S. customs agency expects to begin processing refunds on an estimated $166 billion in President Trump’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the Supreme Court ruled unlawful in February. In a four-step process, importers — roughly 333,000 of them, including FedEx, Prada, Nissan, and BYD — would file a declaration listing the entries on which they paid IEEPA tariffs. Customs would then review those entries, calculate duties and interest, and issue a single electronic refund from the Treasury Department for each importer, regardless of how many separate entries it had made. It remains unclear how long the full process could take, considering that the Trump administration could choose to appeal the March 4 order at the Court of International Trade, which created the legal basis for refunds (and which is currently suspended while the government builds a new refund portal), adding further delay and uncertainty.
Trump has made clear he opposes returning any tariff money, framing refunds as rewarding unfriendly foreign countries and companies while weakening a key policy tool meant to protect U.S. industry and bargaining power. Senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, have sought to recast the issue in a populist light, suggesting that refunds should flow directly to consumers rather than corporations — an echo of Trump’s earlier proposals to pay out tariff revenue as consumer rebates or military bonuses. That argument has some public appeal: 43% of voters, a plurality, want any refunds to go directly to consumers, and 72% do not trust companies that receive refunds to pass any savings off to consumers despite some corporations’ public pledges to do so. Still, trade and legal experts say consumer lawsuits seeking refunds for tariff-driven price increases remain a long shot, in part because of the difficulty proving that a specific price increase was caused by a specific tariff. We will be watching this issue and let you know of any important developments.
