Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932. Yet on Friday, Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton received his second endorsement from a Republican former Kansas governor in less than a month as he challenges Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall. The stakes extend beyond one state: Senate seats collectively determine majority control of the chamber, where the majority sets the legislative agenda, chairs committees, and confirms presidential appointments.

The top Senate Republican super PAC is so concerned that Marshall could lose the race that it is diverting funds to Kansas from North Carolina, where it has canceled its remaining ads against Democrat and former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper — in effect conceding the state, where a Democrat has not won statewide federal office in nearly two decades. Because super PACs may raise and spend unlimited sums so long as they operate independently of candidates, their late budget decisions are closely watched for clues about which races party strategists view as genuinely competitive. Columnist Robert Reich, a former U.S. secretary of labor, examined the shifting race in a piece published by Alternet.

“To say it’s not looking good for Republicans is an understatement,” Reich wrote.

In the column, Reich argued that President Donald Trump has become an albatross for Republicans running for Congress, governor, and other state offices. He contended the shift is not rooted in a sudden discovery of Trump’s character, which has been on national display for more than a decade, nor in a meaningful weakening of his grip on his MAGA base — polls show self-identified MAGA supporters remain firmly behind him.

Nor, he wrote, is it chiefly that Americans have grown angry that the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s tax cuts are large corporations and the very rich, that the burdens of his spending cuts fall disproportionately on the poor through reduced nutrition assistance and Medicaid, or that his mass deportations are violent and cruel — in Reich’s view, there is no evidence those policies are suddenly swaying voters. And it is not that voters have become any more aware of Trump’s falsehoods. Trump continues to say the United States is experiencing a “golden age” with a “roaring economy” doing “better than any other country” in the world, and that any negative public perception is due to a “public relations” problem.

The real problem, Reich argued, is that Americans are hurting — and they know it is because of Trump and Republicans.

A new AP-NORC poll shows a record-low 26 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while just 17 percent approve of his handling of the cost of living, according to coverage of the survey. Those ratings are comparable to George W. Bush’s during the 2008 financial crisis and to George H.W.’s just before he was swept out of office. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index — a monthly gauge compiled by the business research group from a survey of U.S. households — fell to 81.9 in September, its lowest since April 2014.

Kansas — long among the nation’s leading producers of wheat and sorghum — offers a case study, according to Reich. Trump’s tariffs have led China, Canada, and Mexico to retaliate by sharply cutting demand for wheat, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas grain silos are so swollen that grain brokers have been forced to reroute human-grade grain into dog food. Tariffs on foreign-produced aluminum and steel have driven up prices for farm machinery and replacement parts, and Trump’s decision to lift certain foreign beef import restrictions has hurt beef sales for local cattle ranchers.

Reich added that Trump’s war in Iran has choked off shipping of sulfur and phosphate in the Persian Gulf, causing nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer prices to surge by more than 100 percent. The blockage has also sent diesel prices soaring, leaving farmers paying $200 per acre just to fuel their tractors. Those higher costs and lower crop sales have driven roughly 700 Kansas farms to close over the past year, and many remaining farmers are barely holding on.

That backdrop, Reich wrote, explains why former Republican Kansas Gov. Mike Hayden endorsed Hamilton over Marshall in Friday’s Wichita Eagle:

“Sen. Marshall time and again has chosen to back the tariffs and the war, despite what is happening back in Kansas. Kansans need a senator willing to up and say this isn’t working.”

In Reich’s assessment, Americans can bear Trump’s personality, and some may accept his claims, but they cannot abide what his policies are doing to them and their families. Set aside the rip-roaring stock market, he argued: when it comes to voting, “kitchen-table economics” — the financial realities ordinary people discuss around the kitchen table, such as the prices they pay and the money they earn — are more potent than anything else.

Reich closed with a warning against complacency. Voting remains vitally important, he wrote, as does encouraging others who share those values to vote and remaining vigilant against Trump’s interference in elections. Still, with a little more than four weeks to go, he said he was “breathing a wee bit easier” — and hoped readers were, too. In the weeks that remain, the most concrete signs to watch will be how much of the super PAC’s redirected money actually reaches Kansas and whether any further Republican figures follow Hayden in crossing party lines.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and a former U.S. secretary of labor. His writings are available at robertreich.substack.com.

This article is based on Reich’s column, originally published by Alternet.