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Farmers are rightfully pissed at Trump
From diesel to tariffs, the GOP is doing everything it can to turn the Midwest blue.
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A couple weeks ago, Adam Hamilton, pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the country, entered the Democratic Senate primary in Kansas to challenge Republican incumbent Roger Marshall.
Kansas is a deep red state; it hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in 94 years. Still, Hamilton is thought to be a strong contender. An early poll found him eight points behind Marshall, 54-46 — which are not bad initial numbers, considering Trump won the state in 2024 by 16 points. Another hopeful indicator is fundraising; Hamilton raised $1 million in his first week of campaigning — 92 percent from donors contributing $100 or less, and 70 percent from donors in Kansas.
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Hamilton isn’t the only Democrat in Kansas who sees the race as winnable; there’s already a crowded primary field. That reflects Republican woes nationwide. President Donald Trump is under 37 percent in the Fiftyplusone aggregator and Democrats have benefitted from an average swing of 12.6 percent in special elections since 2024, according to The Downballot.
But Democratic hopes in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa also reflect regional conditions. Trump won rural voters by a massive 62-36 percent margin in 2024, in part on the strength of promises of federal aid that would usher in a “golden age” of farming.
But rural states in the Midwest and Plains which rely on farming have been especially hard hit by Trump’s reckless, billionaire-first policies. There’s a lot of discontent, and you can see it in polls and special election results which show Republican support collapsing in areas they have traditionally thought of as their base.
Trump takes farms
Farmers were already experiencing tough times in the 2020s. But Trump 2.0 has made everything worse, and his brutalization of farmers has been multipronged.
Trump’s first and most relentless attack on rural people has been his unilateral, fluctuating, exorbitant, and illegal tariffs. Trump admitted in September that farmers would be “hurt for a little while until the tariffs kick into their benefit.” And so they have been.
Trump’s trade war with China led that country to source corn and soybeans from more stable markets. As a result, agricultural imports from China dropped from a peak of $38 billion to only $8.4 billion in 2025 — a devastating decrease of almost 78 percent. In late 2025 Trump ratcheted back some tariffs, and China has increased its purchases in 2026. But the damage, and uncertainty, remain.
