Republicans quietly breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Friday — but that feeling may prove fleeting. The court's decision to upend Trump’s global tariffs comes as affordability concerns and the cost of living continue to galvanize voters ahead of the midterms. Many free trade-friendly Republicans spent the past year worrying that the tariffs would drive prices higher, destabilize the economy, and hurt their hopes of hanging onto control of Congress this November.

“It's very possible that the Supreme Court just threw Trump's economy a life preserver, and the president is refusing it and demanding an anchor. These tariffs economically have not played well into the affordability narrative,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump State Department official. Trump’s hard line on tariffs has proven particularly difficult for some GOP candidates to navigate in battleground states where manufacturing and agricultural industries have been hit the hardest by the trade measures. Several of Trump’s allies in farm country and Republicans encouraged him to pump the brakes Friday and reassess his path forward.

However, the president’s announcement of a 10 percent global tariff immediately after the ruling had them back on their guard. “We have very powerful alternatives,” Trump said in a press conference Friday afternoon, announcing he will sign the new tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 – and rejecting the possibility of legislating a new measure through Congress. "I don't need to,” he said. “It's already been approved."

Polling shows that Trump’s tariffs are broadly unpopular. A 45 percent plurality of Americans said in a November POLITICO Poll that higher tariffs are damaging the U.S. economy — in both the short and long term. That view falls along partisan lines, with Democrats far more likely to say the levies are damaging the U.S. economy. Still, roughly a quarter of Trump’s own 2024 voters agree.

Despite Americans’ overall disapproval of the White House’s tariff agenda, Trump remains bullish on his approach. “Without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now,” he said in a Thursday speech before a crowd gathered at a factory in northwest Georgia. “I’ve won affordability,” he added.

But the uncertainty around what comes next on tariffs has some Republicans questioning why the administration didn’t go through Congress from the start, instead choosing a legally riskier route that has left at least a temporary vacuum at the heart of their economic agenda in an election year. “Why must we fuck ourselves?” rhetorically asked one GOP official, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak openly about their concerns with the White House’s economic agenda. “He should’ve gotten congressional approval. Now it’s destabilized the economy.”

Democratic candidates are quickly taking advantage of that. DCCC spokesperson Courtney Rice said the decision “makes crystal clear the need for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority over trade policy.” Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for Senate in Michigan, said “the damage has already been done” by the tariffs.

In agriculture-heavy states, the tariffs have been felt acutely in recent months. The Trump administration approved a $12 billion bailout for farmers in December and Hill Republicans are considering a second tranche, though that has yet to pass. American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall released a statement Friday afternoon urging Trump to pump the brakes.

“It’s a long time until November’s midterms. But in battleground races where tariffs pinched the most, the recent memory of trade adventurism and the ongoing dissatisfaction with the current state of the economy could prove fatal for Republicans,” said Wisconsin-based GOP strategist Craig Peterson. “In this last year with all the tariffs and increased costs, it's going to take a little while for folks to forget about that,” Peterson said, noting Election Day is less than nine months away. “That's not