After years of effectively writing off rural voters, based on their solid support for the GOP, Democratic candidates for the White House are suddenly turning up frequently in Iowa — where the primary season kicks off in February — and rolling out rural initiatives on everything from ethanol and broadband to crop subsidies and healthcare.
Their renewed interest in rural America stems from a sense that President Trump is vulnerable there. His trade war with China has caused considerable economic pain in the Farm Belt, with no end in sight. The recent news that Trump personally gave the okay to grant exemptions to some 30 oil refineries, allowing them to use less ethanol, spurred a backlash among corn farmers and the biofuel industry. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who wants to replace Trump, accused the president of “fold[ing] to Big Oil.”
The New York Times reported yesterday that “[t]he predicament of farmers is becoming a political problem for Mr. Trump as he heads into an election year. … While there are few signs of an imminent blue wave in farm country, a growing number of farmers say they are losing patience with the president’s approach and are suggesting it will not take much to lose their vote as well.
“Lucrative contracts that farmers long relied on for a significant source of income have evaporated, with Chinese buyers looking to other nations like Brazil and Canada to get the commodities they need,” the Times noted. “Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through June were up 13 percent from 2018 and loan delinquency rates are on the rise, according to the American Farm Bureau.”
Still, beating Trump in farm country won’t be easy.
“The sparsely populated U.S. heartland has remained loyal to the Republican president even as farmers from Iowa to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania bear the brunt of his tariff war with China,” Reuters reports. “His advisers insist Trump’s projection of toughness against China will only delight, not alienate, his base.”
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that “five in 10 U.S. adults in rural areas approved of Trump’s performance in office, higher than his 41 percent approval nationwide.” But a new Farm Journal poll shows support for the president eroding among farmers.
It will take a smart campaign to overcome the Republican advantage, something the Democrats have been short on when it comes to their approach to rural voters.
Writing last week in The Nation, John Nichols argued, “If Democrats want to be competitive again in rural America, they will need to go bold — as bold as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the New Deal era. That’s when FDR and his party swept to victory in states where Democrats now struggle to stay in the running.”
Forget watering down “progressive messages about economic and social and racial justice” in the hopes that it “will somehow change the hearts and minds of Trump voters,” Nichols said. “The answer is to speak to the needs of all voters — and all potential voters — in vast stretches of America where poverty, disenfranchisement, and disconnection are serious concerns. Instead of dumbing down the message with centrist claptrap, Democrats should be giving young people, people of color, and struggling farmers and workers who live beyond the boundaries of the suburbs a reason to vote.”