By admin 
President Donald Trump has dropped another clunker in the laps of his fellow Republicans in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
Read more GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards rebuked by House over allegations of unwanted advances toward female staffers
His new trade war with Canada and his related move to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” are the latest in a series of unpopular actions.
In fact, new polling suggests they’re even more unpopular than Trump’s previous tariffs and efforts to rename things.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted in recent days is the first quality survey to test Trump’s renewed clash with Canada.
It shows Americans oppose the president’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” 63% to 14%, with the rest undecided.
That more than 4-to-1 margin is more lopsided than when Trump moved to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” last year. Back then, polls showed more than 7 in 10 Americans opposed it. But support was about twice as high, on average.
The US trade war strategy is to troll Canada
The new survey also shows strong opponents (52%) outnumber strong supporters (7%) about 7-to-1.
And even Trump’s fellow Republicans oppose renaming Lake Ontario, 43%-33%.
Trump’s move to rename the lake stems from growing tensions over his trade dispute with Canada (even though Lake Ontario was named long before the Canadian province).
And that trade dispute fares little better in public opinion.
The new poll shows Americans oppose Trump’s new tariffs on Canada nearly 3-to-1, 57%-20%.
Trump’s tariffs have long polled poorly, especially as inflation and the jobs market have proved stagnant over the past 18 months. But this is among the worst findings to date.
Read more Two Democrats bail out Speaker Mike Johnson after he faces internal revolt
Reuters polling in December showed Americans . And when Trump initially announced tariffs on Canadian goods in early 2025, Americans .
Just 9% strongly support the new tariffs, while 43% strongly oppose them. And Republicans lean only modestly in favor of them, 44%-33%.
And that’s not all:
- Despite Trump blaming Canada for the escalation, significantly more Americans say the United States is more responsible for the dispute (46%) than say Canada is (12%).
- Ten times as many people expect the tariffs to mostly hurt their personal financial situation (40%) rather than help it (4%).
- Americans say 68%-25% that they prefer the US not to take a hard line in negotiations, “even if it means it doesn’t get most of what it wants.”
In other words, there’s very little appetite for a clash with Canada. Even nearly half of Republicans support the softer, accommodating approach.
And that’s the common thread running through just about all of these findings. Almost nobody is asking for what Trump is selling, with strong support often in the single digits and lukewarm even in his own party. But he’s decided to press forward.
The road to the 2026 midterms starts now
- Each week, Aaron Blake cuts through the political noise with sharp analysis of the races, candidates and trends that could decide control of Congress. Sign up for 20/26 Vision, a weekly newsletter focusing on this year’s midterms.
Whether and how much it will matter in the upcoming election is to be determined.
Some Republicans have fretted that the Canada tariffs could disproportionately hurt their efforts to hold the Senate, given many of the most competitive races happen to be in states that border Canada: Alaska, Maine, Michigan and Ohio.
But the Canada clash could also hurt Trump more broadly — by reinforcing how he’s focused on things besides lowering prices, and might continue doing things that raise them (like the Iran war).
Which might be why these tariffs and his renaming effort appear even more unpopular than previous similar efforts.
Just imagine before 2025 a president holding an event at the White House — which Trump did for “Lake America” — for a move that 14% of Americans support. It’s virtually unthinkable.
Read more The US trade war strategy is to troll Canada
But in Trump’s second term, it’s par for the course.