The Effect of China’s Soybean Tariff on the Republican Party’s Vote Share in the 2018 Congressional Election

I investigate the association of China’s retaliatory soybean tariff on the Republican vote share change between the 2016 and 2018 mid-term elections. Using county-level election data, I find a significantly negative and spatially heterogeneous association between soybean tariff and Republican vote share change. Mainly, I find that the tariff effect is more prominent in counties where Donald Trump’s vote share was between 40%-50% in 2016. In addition, the association is larger and significant in counties that ship soybean through Pacific Northwest ports implying the effect of the tariff was heterogeneous spatially