Donald Trump’s policies have been a disaster for the nation’s farmers, so much so that a near electoral miracle may soon happen: Kansas, one of the deepest red, most rural states, may elect its first Democratic senator in nearly a century. After Trump won farm country handily in 2024, many rural voters in Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere have soured on him because the price of diesel fuel, a key input for farming, has soared by nearly 70%, farm bankruptcies have surged and because Trump’s trade wars have significantly reduced agricultural exports. Rural voters are so upset with Trump that polls show that Republican Senate candidates stand a good chance of losing in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas, even though Trump won those rural states by 13 percentage points or more in 2024.
No wonder Trump is hopscotching madly across Kansas, Iowa, and other states in the midterm campaign’s final weeks. No one is saying that Trump deliberately hurt farmers, but when he plunged the US into the Iran war and his many trade wars, he showed little concern about what those decisions might mean for rural America. It was nearly inevitable that Trump’s moves would batter farmers – by pushing down soybean and other farm exports and by pushing up the price of fuel, fertilizer and farm equipment.
Not only that, Trump’s proudest legislative achievement, his “big, beautiful bill”, further hammered farm country with its major cuts to food assistance and its $1tn in Medicaid cuts, which will cause an estimated 1.8 million rural Americans to lose health insurance. Even the Cato Institute, a Republican-friendly, conservative thinktank, slammed Trump over what he has done to farmers. A Cato commentary stated that while Trump calls this a “golden age” for farmers, the fact is that Trump’s “tariffs are inflicting serious damage” on farmers, increasing their input prices and causing their exports to decline by billions of dollars.
This helps explain why farm bankruptcies have jumped by 85% over two years ago. Little wonder that a recent KFF/AP poll found that roughly six in 10 rural voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy, while around half believe the economy is in worse shape than when Trump returned to office. Indeed, many rural voters have turned against Trump – while nearly two-thirds backed him in 2024, now less than half, 49%, of rural voters say they support GOP candidates this fall, according to a Fox News poll.
At a recent news conference in Washington, John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, sought to convey the pain and anger many farmers feel. In a direct slap at Trump, Hansen added: “Just when farmers need to expand markets for their products, the president seems to be at war with our nation’s top three trading partners: Mexico, Canada and China. When trade wars break out, farmer noses always bleed first and worst and longest.” Many rural voters backed Trump in 2024 because he promised to cut prices, including energy prices, and vowed not to plunge the US into unnecessary, expensive wars overseas.
But now many feel betrayed because Trump began an unnecessary, expensive war against Iran that caused diesel fuel – which farmers rely on for their tractors and combines – to soar to a record $6.52 a gallon in late September, before declining somewhat (to $6.32). This price spike – diesel averaged $3.75 a gallon before the war – cost most farmers thousands of extra dollars when many were barely breaking even. That’s all due to Trump and his war in Iran.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
