Trade didn't do too well in November's Congressional races, reports Brad Haynes Trade Deals Will Face More Critics in Congress:
Free-trade critics picked up more than two dozen House seats and at least six Senate seats in the Nov. 4 election....
Free-trade advocates question whether trade rhetoric played a decisive part in the 2008 campaign, but many agree that the number of lawmakers who are skeptical of the benefits of free trade is growing on Capitol Hill....
And a number of Democratic candidates skeptical about free trade lost, including in two open House races....
Many winning congressional candidates across the country played to voters' concerns over recent free-trade agreements, while several candidates who had supported such agreements lost....
Free-trade advocates argue that trade wasn't a central issue in most competitive races, with only a dozen of the 50-plus new candidates who won having mentioned trade issues on their campaign Web sites, according to the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington group promoting free trade. But the number of campaign ads highlighting the alleged harms of free trade grew to more than 140 this election, from 25 in 2006, according to Public Citizen.
The success of such candidates as Democrat Jeff Merkley, who won a Senate seat in Oregon, suggested that the issue resonated beyond the traditionally protectionist Midwest. The Pacific Northwest is home to Nike Inc., Microsoft Corp. and many other companies that rely on foreign trade, and it has long been seen as supporting free trade. Mr. Merkley beat incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith after airing nine television ads that blamed job losses in the state on free-trade policies that the Republican lawmaker supports.
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