Fox News on Wednesday delivered an unwelcome assessment for Republican prospects in the upcoming midterm elections, reporting that President Donald Trump's escalating trade war with Canada will hit five states especially hard — all of them key battlegrounds. The political stakes are heightened by geography: competitive states like these often decide which party controls Congress, giving economic pressure concentrated there an outsized political footprint.

"Billions of dollars in U.S. exports are exposed to the northern neighbor's retaliatory tariffs that target American goods across a range of industries," the network reported. "The outcome? Costs are expected to continue rising for U.S. businesses and consumers in the weeks leading to the must-win midterms."

To assess how the situation may unfold, Fox turned to David Clement, policy director of the free-market nonprofit Consumer Choice Center. "American manufacturers or American businesses who rely on Canadian inputs are going to start to feel the pain right in the lead up to going to the ballot box," Clement said. He identified Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as the states most exposed to negative fallout, citing their high levels of trade with Canada and the goods targeted by the tariffs. Canada has long ranked among the largest destinations for American exports, a structural reality that helps explain why Clement sees the fallout concentrating in states whose economies lean on trade-intensive manufacturing.

"Ohio is by far the most vulnerable state in terms of exposure from the Canadian retaliatory tariffs," Clement said, estimating that roughly $2.3 billion in exports to Canada are exposed. He pointed to machinery, transportation products, minerals, and metals as the major sources of that vulnerability.

In Michigan, the impact is particularly visible in the auto industry, where supply chains are deeply intertwined with those of neighboring Ontario. "Most Americans don't know that a single component on a U.S.-assembled vehicle can cross the border upwards of eight times before it's actually completed," Clement said. "When you are tariffing automotive parts going across the border each way, it really gums up the very intertwined supply chain for cars between Michigan and Ontario." Those costs, he asserted, will trickle down to consumers. The dynamic illustrates how tariffs on intermediate goods compound at each crossing rather than applying just once to a finished vehicle.

Pennsylvania also faces significant exposure, according to Fox. Clement noted that roughly 25 percent of the state's exports go to Canada — much of it machinery and equipment — putting just under $1.8 billion in exports at risk. Taken together, the sectors Fox flagged — machinery, metals, transportation products, and equipment — map onto the industrial core of the upper Midwest, where trade with Canada is woven into the region's manufacturing economy.

Clement argued that even if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms, the trade war is unlikely to end anytime soon, given the legislative hurdles that limit lawmakers' ability to reverse presidential trade policy. Still, he maintained that the timing could weigh heavily on the elections, as the effects of the tariffs are already being felt. The coming weeks will show whether those cost pressures keep building as Fox expects, and how prominently trade-driven expenses figure when voters cast their ballots in November.

"Cost of living, cost of goods, cost of doing business is such an important factor for Americans who are going to be casting a ballot," he said.

The analysis was originally published by Fox News and reported by Alternet.