President Donald Trump and his Republican majorities in the House and Senate are riding on public approval in November, but few voters are warming to either of their economic messages. A string of recent layoffs across the Trump-voting heartland is not making the Republican argument any easier as the nation slides toward the midterm elections, when all 435 House seats and roughly a third of the Senate will be on the ballot.

On Thursday morning, a Kearney, Missouri, construction-industry employer in the Kansas City area announced that it will lay off dozens of its employees — workers who will go home for good just one month before voters head to the polls to deliver their verdict on Trump and incumbent Republicans' stewardship of the economy. Missouri has backed the Republican presidential ticket in every election since 2000, and Trump carried the state by more than 20 percentage points in 2024.

"Cornerstone Building Brands, Inc. intends to implement a reduction in force at its Kearney, MO facility located at 303 W. Major St., Kearney, MO 64060," company leaders told the Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development, citing a facility cut that will affect more than 60 employees.

"The reduction in force is expected to be permanent, and there will not be any bumping rights for the affected employees," company leaders added. "All affected employees have been notified of their separation dates and that their separation from employment will be permanent. Affected employees are expected to be separated from employment on or around October 19, 2026." The notification is a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing: the federal WARN Act generally requires employers with 100 or more employees to give affected workers and state officials 60 days' advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs — the interval reflected between the August notice and the mid-October separation date.

The affected jobs include technicians, forklift operators, machine operators and various production roles connected to the construction industry, the company said. None of the affected employees are represented by a union.

Cornerstone Building Brands manufactures residential and commercial exterior building solutions, according to the company's website. Headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, the company was formed through the 2018 merger of NCI Building Systems and Ply Gem and taken private by the investment firm American Industrial Partners in 2022; its brands span windows, doors, siding and metal building components. The construction industry, however, has not fared well under Trump's policies.

Critics are blasting the president for misleading the public about the actual state of the American economy, which Trump claimed would see a manufacturing boom as a result of his tariffs. Those measures include Section 232 tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, raised to 50 percent in 2025 — metals that are major inputs for the building products Cornerstone produces.

"Since his re-election, we've lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs and $60 Billion in annual factory construction," The Lincoln Project posted on X last month. "Over the same period, Biden had created 625,000."

The Lincoln Project cited Department of Labor payroll figures showing that manufacturing employment had fallen by 75,000 since Trump's inauguration. Speaking with AlterNet earlier in July, one economist explained that Trump's tariffs have in general created a climate of economic volatility.

"It's about uncertainty," Dr. Robert Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the administration of President Bill Clinton and principal economic adviser to Clinton's 1992 campaign, told AlterNet. "Every investment is based on an assessment of the likely future demand for whatever you're investing in, and how much it's going to cost to produce it. So there are assumptions about labor costs, material costs and other input costs — and again, about demand."

By these accounts, the assumptions underpinning the economy for the remainder of the Trump term do not appear to be sunny ones.