“Manufacturing is in recession right now. This is what all the data show,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities. “And everywhere I go in the world, the fear I hear is that we are going to be driven deeper into recession because this is all about uncertainty caused by the trade war.”…

In Racine County, Wisc., where Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton, manufacturing had a 22.5 percent share of employment in 2016. The jobless rate in the county rose by three tenths of a percent from January 2018 to August 2019.

Other manufacturing-heavy states that Trump narrowly won in 2016, and where the current slump could hurt him, include Michigan and North Carolina. A recent study by LendingTree found that Michigan is the U.S. state most at risk of a near-term recession based on employment trends, house prices and other data — with a nearly 60 percent chance of weak economic fundamentals in the fourth quarter of this year. The ongoing General Motors strike that began last month puts the state at even greater risk.