Will farmers fed up with Trump make a difference in November?

Thinking about the farm vote in Novermber, I can’t imagine a more frustrated group of voters than rural Americans. In 2024, about two-thirds of them voted for Trump, who demonstrated during both terms that his policies terrible in ways that specifically impacted farmers and their rural communities.

• He was hostile to the U.S. Postal Service, rejecting a badly needed bailout during the Covid pandemic. He seems to have done nothing about the awful treatment South Dakotans get from USPS.  Sen. Rounds has lately tried to get something done about it, but so far nothing has improved. 

• He wants to cut the USDA budget by 20%, as he tried to do during his first term. Besides the loss of programs, rural residents stand to lose the economic gains provided by the USDA’s presence.

• Tariff wars have undermined American producers. When I look at grain prices that are barely above levels seen years ago, I wonder if Trump has ever understood the relationship between crop prices and export policies. 

• Trump’s health care cuts will hurt rural residents and their community hospitals, which depend heavily on the Medicaid payments that he wants to curtail. The Academy of Management says that those cuts will “have a devastating impact on rural hospitals.”

• The Iran war has raised input costs for farmers, who won’t get much relief for a long while after the war ends, if it ever does. The USDA forecasts record high production costs in 2027. 

I could go on, but you get the idea.The political question at hand is a simple one: Will disenchanted producers and their neighbors in rural communities turn on Trump and his policies and vote for some change in November? 

I’d be surprised if they do in meaningful numbers, largely because I sense that Trump’s connection to rural voters has much to do with common cultural worldviews, particularly on immigration.There’s also that attachment to party label, which in South Dakota translates into Republican registrations that are huge compared to Democrats and others.  

And, despite the fact that there is little national approval (around 30%) for Trump’s economic performance, his numbers are much stronger among rural voters, coming in at around 50%. That and the sizable Republican registration advantage in states like South Dakota will make it tough on Democrats and independents seeking to upend the status quo.

How tough? It’s hard to say. We can’t quantify the extent to which a powerful need for self-flaggelation is built into some of Donald Trump’s support.

John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.      

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

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