Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump aims for a large voter turnout in rural areas as a key to winning the Nov. 8 election and will attack federal regulation, a popular target in farm country, says Agri-Pulse. Trump scored well in rural America, a traditionally conservative and Republican-leaning area, during primary elections, according to the Daily Yonder.
Sam Clovis, a Trump national campaign co-chair, told Agri-Pulse that the campaign needs hefty vote margins in rural America and in small-town Midwest to win the general election. The Trump campaign will attack on regulatory issues and try to ally agribusiness concerns about Trump’s opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Most farm groups support TPP because it would remove barriers to Japan’s food market.
“He believes in trade, just as much as any of us in trade, but he believes in fair trade, and there’s a difference,” said Charlie Herbster, the Nebraska businessman who chairs the Trump advisory committee on agriculture and rural issues. An agricultural position paper will be released in early August, Clovis told Agri-Pulse.
Herbster told a agribusiness luncheon on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention that Trump “understands that food security is national security” and is committed to eliminating the estate tax.
In addition, Herbster said Trump understands the need to revitalize rural America, said The Hagstrom Report.
Former Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman told KWBE-TV in Beatrice, Neb., that Herbster and Trump have been friends for years. “It was that relationship when Trump met with him that he said ‘Hey Charles, I want you to head up my agricultural advisory committee so I understand what the agricultural issues are facing Nebraskans,” said Heineman in a KWBE story.