Updated 10:00am November 3 with additional results--see below.

As the dust settles from Tuesday’s election, one conclusion is clear: the midterm election was not about trade.

Some candidates, mostly Democrats, tried to win votes by tapping into anxiety about trade with China, "offshoring," and trade agreements. The anti-trade activists at Public Citizen recently contended that "[v]irtually every Democrat in a tough race has at least one paid television ad attacking offshoring, and many propose changes to the tax system to combat it."

It didn’t work. Public Citizen identified 36 new "fair trade" House members in a report issued after the 2008 election (see p. 52). The activist group argued that opposition to free trade agreements played an important role in their election.

And yet 17 20 of those 36 House members were defeated on November 2. Twelve Fourteen were re-elected (four of whom are Republicans), and seven two are locked in races that are too close to call as of midnight on November 2 10:00am on November 3. View the updated full table (PDF). Other outspoken opponents of trade agreements such as Phil Hare, Zack Space, and Joe Sestak lost.

Public Citizen was off base in arguing that the 2008 election was "about trade." A host of surveys at the time confirmed that voters were focused on the unfolding financial crisis, the Iraq war, and the unpopularity of President Bush.

But the 2010 election wasn’t "about trade" either. It was about jobs and the economy, and expressions of concern about trade and offshoring failed to provide a lifeline for beleaguered Democrats.

However, there is evidence that when political leaders bash trade, the public listens. Surveys by the highly regarded Pew Research Center for the People & the Press have long shown moderate but consistent support for free trade agreements, as seen in this table:

The exceptional results from April 2008 show a dramatic but temporary dip in support and rise in opposition to free trade agreements. At the time, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in the press every day trying to outdo one another in criticizing these agreements.

Yet support for trade in multiple polls recovered by the following spring. By that time, President Obama was expressing general support for trade in a fashion typical of U.S. presidents. In May 2009, the Progressive Policy Institute observed that "American Public Opinion on Trade Has Sharply Improved This Year."

More recently, polls are again showing a decline in public support for trade. Again, anti-trade rhetoric voiced by administration officials must bear part of the blame.

This is a dangerous game. In September, for example, President Obama criticized Pat Toomey, saying he "wants to make trade deals that send jobs out of Pennsylvania."

It’s unclear whether this was a reference to the pending trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama, for which President Obama has also expressed support, with certain provisos. Won’t President Obama want the support of Senator-elect Toomey for these agreements?

Administration officials say they support trade agreements but won’t push for them until they win public support. Worse yet, these same officials are feeding Americans’ anxieties about trade.

Trade can help create jobs at home and advance American interests abroad. Saying otherwise isn’t just bad policy: it turns out to be ineffective politics.