Dems refuse to make 2024 mistakes in the wake of tariff ruling

The Supreme Court’s tariff decision left the door wide open for Democrats to hammer President Donald Trump for violating the law. This time, they’re not taking the bait.

Instead, Democratic campaigns are leaning into an argument they have been making for months: Trump’s tariffs are coming out of voters’ pockets. Some Democrats can’t help but hit the tariffs as “unlawful,” but they’re pivoting quickly back to affordability.

“The decision is a significant development, but prices are still high for folks across the country, and the administration is determined to keep them high,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.,) chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “We are laser focused on affordability and holding Republicans accountable for raising prices on families across the country.”

She said Democrats’ message would have been the same, regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled.

It’s a striking shift from the party’s strategy in 2024, when candidates took every opportunity to warn voters that a second Trump term would create lawlessness and threaten America’s democracy. Even after the nation’s highest court struck down a key plank in the president’s policy agenda, Democrats are eschewing talk of legal intricacies or executive overreach for a focus on the cost of living.

In Washington and in battlegrounds around the country, Democratic lawmakers, governors and candidates are folding the Court’s check of Trump’s executive authority into their continued argument that tariffs are raising the price of groceries and household expenses. Congress is newly considering legislation on refunding tariff revenue to American small businesses, though Speaker Mike Johnson threw cold water on its chances of advancing.

Even Democrats who are pushing a more aggressive message — that Trump “stole” from voters’ pockets — are tying it to affordability for American households, not abuse of power from the White House.

“Donald Trump stole your money with his illegal tariffs — and you paid higher prices on everything from housing to groceries,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media.

Voters remain overwhelmingly pessimistic about the economy, even as job growth and inflation numbers improve. Democrats targeting vulnerable incumbent Republicans from Colorado to Minnesota think they’ve found a winning message: Tariffs are making your life unaffordable, whether they’re legal or not.

“People aren't going to care whether that's under an IEEPA regulation or Section 122,” said Gabe Horwitz, senior vice president at center-left group Third Way. “The fact is, the Trump administration continues to push tariffs that hurt consumers.”

Democratic operatives point to a series of off-cycle victories late last year in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere, where candidates made cost-of-living central to their pitch. And a torrent of polling suggests Trump’s tariffs are unpopular with the electorate. In a November POLITICO Poll, a 45 percent plurality of Americans said higher tariffs are damaging the U.S. economy — in both the short and long term.

“Prices are increasing, and any time Trump gives us an opportunity to say something happened in the news today — and that is another point of proof that he's making things more expensive — is a good day for Democrats,” said Andrew Mamo, a Democratic strategist involved in 2026 congressional races, including the Texas Democratic Senate primary. “Every time there is an event that we can bring back to affordability is good.”

There’s also a growing push to send tariff revenue back to consumers, which Democrats believe plays perfectly into their affordability message.

Reps. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), who both represent battleground districts, introduced legislation Friday that would require Customs and Border Patrol to refund tariffs collected over the past year to small and independent businesses. A group of Democratic senators — led by Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — introduced a similar bill Monday with the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The legislation is likely a nonstarter in the GOP-controlled Congress, but gives Democrats a way to put pressure on Republicans.

“When someone takes money that wasn't authorized and does it in a way that harms you, they've stolen from you, and that is what the Trump administration has done for the last year,” Horsford said in an interview.

It follows calls from several Democratic governors — and 2028 contenders — who quickly seized on the debate about refunds in their responses to last week’s court decision.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois demanded the federal government refund families $1,700 per household. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters that Trump has an “obligation” to return the money to consumers who paid more for goods as a result of the tariffs.

“He took hundreds of billions of dollars from working folks — from the ag community, from small businesses — for this vanity play, this illegal action,” Newsom said Friday.

At least one Democrat in a key Senate race is also embracing the demand for a tariff refund. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is trying to unseat Jon Husted, said on Xthat he wanted a refund for every Ohio household and that Husted supported the tariffs “at every turn.”

Providing direct relief to consumers is resonating beyond highly engaged Democratic online circles more so than pointing out the illegality of Trump’s tariffs, said Parker Butler, a Democratic digital strategist and managing partner at Luminary Strategies.

“Pointing out the fact that, ‘See, look, Trump did something illegal’ — obviously that's worth doing, because he did do something illegal,” said Butler, who ran KamalaHQ in 2024 and now leads digital for James Talarico’s Senate campaign in Texas. “But unfortunately, I don't think that's going to permeate outside these sort of online political bubbles. If you want to actually break through beyond that bubble, which is what Democrats need to be doing, you can say, ‘Trump owes you money. He's been illegally taxing you for nearly a year.’”

Trump has only doubled down on his tariff plans in the wake of the court decision, saying Friday that he would use Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 15 percent global tariff. But that would expire after 150 days unless Congress extends it — a vote that could squeeze vulnerable members just months before the November midterm.

Vulnerable Republicans and GOP strategists who quietly cheered the Friday court decision are worried that they’re heading into a heated, economy-focused election on their back foot.

Meanwhile, Democrats see the president’s insistence on keeping his tariff program alive as fuel for their affordability message.

“We can't communicate episodically. We need to be communicating constantly,” said Will Robinson, a Democratic consultant and ad-maker. “I think the theoretical thing about the Supreme Court and tariffs is less impactful than what's actually going on in the grocery basket.”

Brakkton Booker and Jordain Carney contributed reporting.