Most registered voters in Michigan said tariffs imposed by Republican President Donald Trump on products manufactured outside the United States will be bad for the state and have pessimistic views about the current economy, according to poll results released Tuesday by the Detroit Regional Chamber.

The survey was unveiled ahead of the business organization’s annual Mackinac Policy Conference and provided an in-depth look at how residents of an electoral battleground state see a central policy of Trump’s second term after three months in office.

Asked about the tariffs’ potential impact on Michigan, 54% of the 600 participants said the effect would be bad, while 35% said it would be good — a difference of 19 percentage points. Another 11% said there would be no impact or they declined to answer.

Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, said the results showed voters in Michigan clearly understood that tariffs are a tax and will increase the costs of goods.

“There’s a fairly clear understanding that tariffs are not good for Michigan,” Baruah said. “But at least a plurality of Republicans still support President Trump’s tariff policy.”

Overall, 600 registered voters in Michigan participated in the Detroit Regional Chamber’s poll that was conducted April 24-28 by the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, which also does polling for The Detroit News. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Most of the participants were contacted via cellphone. About 40% self-identified as Democrats, 39% said they were Republicans, 19% labeled themselves independent and 3% didn’t provide an answer on their party affiliation.

Among the participants, 62% said they believed the economy was weakening or in a recession, while 34% said it was growing.

How voters perceive Trump’s tariffs and their impact on the economy could sway the November 2026 midterm election, in which Michigan voters will select a new governor and a new U.S. senator and fill every seat in the state Legislature.

Trump has contended that the higher tariffs on cars, auto parts and other items will eventually spur companies to bring new factories and jobs to the United States. But many Democrats have argued that Trump’s increased tariffs will interrupt global trade and drive up prices Americans pay on everything from cars to furniture.

The tariffs could have an especially large impact on Michigan, which has an economy that relies heavily on the auto industry and whose neighbor is Canada. Trump levied a 25% tariff on goods manufactured in Canada and additional tariffs on Canadian-made steel and vehicles.

Asked whether they support increased tariffs on products imposed by Trump, 51% of participants said they opposed them, while 43% supported them. The rest didn’t offer an answer.

On whether tariffs had affected them directly yet, 77% said no, while 21% said yes.

Timing of the survey

Because the poll was conducted in late April, it came before Trump and China announced a deal on May 12 to lower their tariffs on each other and before the U.S. stock market rose in early May.

The survey also happened before economists from the University of Michigan predicted on May 16 that increased tariffs would reduce Michigan’s employment growth by 13,000 jobs over the next five years.

In a forecast for state lawmakers, Gabriel Ehrlich and Yinuo Zhang of UM’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics said Michigan’s economy will add jobs “at a moderate pace” in the coming years, but the growth will face a negative hit from higher tariffs imposed by Trump.

“We believe the economic momentum was solid coming into this quarter,” Zhang said. “However, we’ll likely see tariffs drag on the economy soon.”

The survey results were released on Tuesday, the first day of the chamber’s annual policy conference on Mackinac Island, where political and business leaders gather to talk about the state’s future.

The new tariffs will loom over the three-day event, which will feature speeches by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Republican former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who serves as Trump’s ambassador to Canada.

The island gathering comes as Michigan’s unemployment rate has been trending upward for more than a year, a rise that started long before Trump became president in January. Michigan’s jobless rate was 5.5% in April. Among the 50 states, only Nevada at 5.6% had a higher percentage.

However, Nevada’s rate has improved in recent months, while Michigan’s has increased or held steady.

As of April, Michigan had about 162,000 jobs in vehicle or auto parts manufacturing, more than any other state, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During a speech in Macomb County in April, Trump announced he planned to offer “partial tariff rebates” to companies that assemble their cars in the U.S.

“We give them a little bit of time before we slaughter them if they don’t do this,” said Trump, referring to his hope that higher tariffs will lead to manufacturers shifting their operations to the U.S.

During the campaign for president last year, Trump said he believed Michigan would be the “biggest beneficiary” of his plan to place tariffs on goods imported into the United States.

More: These 400 promises Trump made in Michigan now loom over his 2nd term

But in February, Whitmer, Michigan’s governor, said Trump’s tariffs will “hurt American autoworkers and consumers, raise prices on cars, groceries and energy for working families and put countless jobs at risk.”

“Because companies pass tariff costs on to the consumers, Trump’s middle-class tax hike will mean Michigan families pay more to heat their homes as they face below freezing temperatures, fill their gas tanks and get affordable housing at a time when inflation is already high,” Whitmer added. “It will harm our auto industry, driving up the cost of cars and slowing production lines.”

A partisan break

The new Detroit Regional Chamber poll showed Michigan voters hold nuanced and sharply divided feelings about tariffs.

Asked about the impact of tariffs on prices, 79% — a clear majority of participants — said the policies imposed by Trump will increase the costs they pay for goods. Only 6% said tariffs would decrease the prices they pay.

However, 48% — a plurality of the participants — said the tariffs would bring more manufacturing jobs to Michigan, 28% said there would be fewer jobs and 15% said there would be no impact. The other 9% said they didn’t know or declined to answer.

The Glengariff Group found that 33% of the poll participants — one out of every three — said tariffs will result in them paying higher costs for goods but also said they supported the tariffs.

There was a significant partisan division on tariffs as well.

Among those registered voters who identified as “strong Republican,” 92% supported Trump’s increased tariffs. Among those who identified as “strong Democratic,” 96% opposed the tariffs.

The poll results showed a much tighter breakdown among independents, with 49% in support and 51% in opposition.

Similarly, on whether the economy is growing or weakening, 64% of the strong Republicans said it was growing, but 17% of the strong Democrats said it was growing.

Richard Czuba, founder of the Glengariff Group, said over the last decade, political affiliation has increasingly dictated how people view the economy and what positions they take in surveys.

“There used to be common things that voters agreed on, and that’s becoming less and less so,” Czuba said. “Because voters are simply not agreeing to the same set of facts or statistics.”

However, the feelings of independents are key to watch, he said.

“What they view of the economy has a big say in which way Michigan goes,” Czuba said.

On where the economy will be in one year, 47% of participants said it will grow. However, 38% said it would be in recession, 3% said about the same place it is now, and 12% said they didn’t know.

The recession response rate represented an increase of 11 percentage points from January, when it was 27%, Czuba noted.

The expectation of a recession had increased from January among Democrats and independents, Czuba said. But there was virtually no expectation of a recession among Republicans.

Similarly, on whether the U.S. should aggressively compete to be a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing, 58% said it should, and 36% said it shouldn’t.

Among the strong Democrats, 70% said the U.S. should aggressively compete in the EV market. But among strong Republicans, 49% — a plurality — said the U.S. should not aggressively compete. About 44% of the strong Republican participants said the U.S. should aggressively compete in the EV market.

cmauger@detroitnews.com