Wearing a red and black plaid jacket and a “Minnesota Grown” ball cap, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appealed for rural votes on a farm in northwestern Pennsylvania on Tuesday. “We’ve got a plan for rural America that’s specific,” with initiatives to recruit more health care professionals, improve internet access, and bolster farm income, he said, while former president Donald Trump would disrupt the economy with high tariffs.
“I promise you this, Vice President Kamala Harris and I, when we win this election, we will have rural America’s back, just like they’ve had our back,” said Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president. During a half-hour speech on a chilly afternoon, Walz recalled his childhood in Nebraska, talked about pheasant hunting last weekend, celebrated Midwestern cuisine — “Dairy, pork and turkey, those are the three food groups in Minnesota” — and repeatedly slammed Trump.
“Donald Trump did it all, starting trade wars with China that his own people said he lost,” said Walz. U.S. food and ag exports slumped during the Sino-U.S. trade war, which ended in a truce in 2020. The Trump administration sent $23 billion in relief payments to farmers and ranchers.
Trump won the rural vote by landslide margins in 2016 and 2020. Rural Americans tend to be fiscal and social conservatives. An NBC News poll of registered voters conducted early this month said 73 percent of rural voters preferred Trump and 23 percent supported Harris for president; the candidates were tied at 48 percent nationally.
The Harris-Walz campaign circulated a 10-page “Plan for rural communities” ahead of Walz’s speech in Volant, about 55 miles north of Pittsburgh. It would use scholarships and student loan repayment programs to encourage doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals to work in rural areas; double federal funding for telehealth equipment; halve “ambulance deserts”; revive a program that reduces the household cost of internet service; ensure farmers’ “right to repair” their tractors; step up antitrust oversight of agribusinesses; and encourage climate-smart farming practices.
Trump has called for a 20 percent tariff on all imports and tariffs of up to 60 percent on Chinese products. The Republican Party platform, in a page headlined, “Protect American workers and farmers from unfair trade,” proposes revocation of most-favored-nation trade status for China and vows to “stop China from buying American real estate and businesses.” The platform also would “rein in wasteful federal spending,” “cut costly and burdensome regulations,” and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history” of undocumented immigrants.
By one estimate, 40 percent of U.S. farmworkers are undocumented immigrants.
To watch a C-SPAN video of Walz’s speech, click here.
The 10-page Harris-Walz rural plan is available here.