One Year After “Liberation Day,” Main Street Action and Main Street Action PAC Launch 2026 Campaign to Hold Leaders Accountable for Rising Costs
MSA members serve as a panel for a Main Street Governor Forum in Milwaukee in January. Read more.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — One year after the so-called “Liberation Day,” Main Street Action and Main Street Action PAC today announced a major 2026 campaign to hold policymakers accountable as small businesses and working families face a deepening affordability crisis.
What was promised as relief has delivered the opposite. Small business owners are navigating rising fuel and energy costs, higher prices for goods and shipping, and persistently expensive groceries, all while health care becomes harder to access and afford.
But the impact goes beyond higher costs.
“Liberation Day marked something deeper than bad policy,” said Richard Trent, Executive Director of Main Street Action. “It exposed two dangerous trends: declining trust in the institutions meant to serve us, and growing power concentrated in the hands of a few corporate actors and political insiders.”
As corporate consolidation accelerates and decision-making moves further away from everyday people, small business owners are left squeezed between rising costs and shrinking influence.
A Different Kind of Messenger for This Moment
Main Street Action’s 2026 strategy centers on a simple idea: the country needs more trusted, real-world validators.
Not politicians. Not pundits.
People with skin in the game.
Small business owners are uniquely positioned to translate complex economic policy into everyday impact, how rising health costs affect hiring, how tariffs hit prices, how access to capital shapes whether a business survives.
“In a moment of low trust, who delivers the message matters as much as the message itself,” Trent said. “Small business owners can make the affordability crisis legible in a way no one else can.”
Turning Economic Pain Into Political Power
In partnership with a multi-state battleground coalition, Main Street Action will activate small business validators across more than 35 competitive districts, connecting rising costs directly to policy decisions and those responsible for them.
Main Street Action PAC will expand independent expenditure programs to scale this effort, including:
Paid media featuring small business voices
Direct voter outreach through texting and field programs
Accountability campaigns targeting policymakers driving up costs
Strategic investments in key congressional and state races
From “Liberation Day” to Accountability
One year later, the gap between promise and reality is clear. “Small businesses didn’t get liberation. They got higher costs, tighter margins, and more uncertainty,” Trent said. “In 2026, we’re organizing to make sure voters understand why—and who is responsible.”
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