The Republican Party’s love affair with free trade is over, even if the GOP Establishment refuses to admit it.

A new survey released Thursday by Caddell & Associates on behalf of Americans for Limited Government shows that Republicans oppose the TPP by a margin of 66 percent to 15 percent after learning more about the agreement’s contents, and 64 percent of Republicans said they would be more likely to support a presidential candidate who “promises to put a stop” to the TPP and “enact trade policies that put U.S. jobs first.”

“These results confound the conventional wisdom that the GOP is the party of ‘free trade’” Americans for Limited Government said in a press release. Indeed, a slightly older Caddell & Associates poll showed Republicans saying free trade deals benefited other countries more than the U.S. by a margin of 54 percent to 9 percent.

[lz_table title=”Support for the TPP” source=”Caddell & Associates”]Republicans
Oppose,66%
Support,15%
|Independents
Oppose,52%
Support,19%
|Democrats
Oppose,44%
Support,30%
|Overall
Oppose,53%
Support,23%
[/lz_table]

Republican voters’ frustrations with free trade were on full display in Michigan during the state’s primary on Tuesday, a state that has suffered more than most from the effects of free trade deals.

The state lost 43,000 jobs to NAFTA and another 80,000 to the permanent normalization of trade relations with China, Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders reminded Michiganders in an op-ed on Sunday.

It’s no surprise that Michigan exit polling showed 55 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of Democrats said that trade with other countries “takes away U.S. jobs.” But if exit polling Tuesday hinted at Michigan Republicans’ dissatisfaction with free trade, their voting on the day proved it.

[lz_related_box id=”118956″]

Trump — the only GOP candidate with a consistent anti free trade message — received the highest percentage of votes, proportionately, in Michigan in counties that had lost the most manufacturing jobs, an analysis by Bloomberg found.

While the Republican Party has long been the party of free trade in Congress, it’s clear Republican voters are rising up against the Establishment’s slavish, neoliberal devotion to the global free market.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

But it’s not just Republicans who are questioning the new global economic order. Seventy-two percent of all those polled in the new Caddell & Associates survey supported “protecting American jobs by raising tariffs on countries with unethical trade practices even if it harms America’s global reputation.”

[lz_table title=”Likelihood of Voting for Anti-TPP, Protectionist Candidate” source=”Caddell & Associates”]Republicans
More Likely,64%
Less Likely,15%
|Independents
More Likely,50%
Less Likely,19%
|Democrats
More Likely,50%
Less Likely,18%
|Overall
More Likely,54%
Less Likely,17%
[/lz_table]

Moreover, 82 percent of those surveyed said that “protecting American jobs and industries from being outsourced to other countries” is more important than “allowing free trade so you can buy products at low prices no matter what country they come from.”

A full three-quarters of those surveyed believed “our economic and trade policies should always put American needs and American jobs first, before the needs of other countries or big corporations.”

“Republicans overwhelmingly oppose trade deals that benefit foreign countries and not the American people, representing an outright rejection of corporate cronyism and being replaced by cheap foreign labor,” read Americans for Limited Government’s press release. But there is more than simple rejection of “crony capitalism” at hand.

More than two-thirds of those polled in the new survey said that “the real economic division in America is between the elites who see themselves as global citizens of the world and the mainstream of America which says put America’s economic interest first [emphasis added] and the needs of the ordinary American people above all.”

[lz_table title=”Americans’ Attitudes on Free Trade” source=”Caddell & Associates”]Trade policies should always put American needs and American jobs first
Agree,75%
Disagree,13%
|Free trade agreements signed by US in last 20 years were:
More beneficial to other countries,63%
More beneficial for US,12%
|Protecting US jobs more important than allowing free trade
Agree,82%
Disagree,18%
[/lz_table]

The elite who see themselves as global citizens versus the mainstream who wish to put America first. Republican voters — not to voters as a whole — are awakening to the fact that their party elites govern the country as a mere subsidiary of Globalization Inc., with little regard for the national interest, the native worker, or national sovereignty.

“Free trade has moved, or the issue of trade, itself, and these trade deals, has moved from being an ancillary issue into being what I would call a nexus issue, which has become a real voting issue,” Pat Caddell, whose firm conducted the poll, said on the Laura Ingraham Show on Thursday.

And the great political realignment between globalists and sovereigntists continues.