The mood in farm country is sour, and Democrats are betting that anger boils over at the ballot box in November.
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Tariffs have battered agriculture-heavy economy in Iowa, which Donald Trump carried by 13 points just 18 months ago, while Medicaid cuts have shuttered rural health clinics across the state and the Iran war has driven up the cost of fertilizer and diesel — the lifeblood of farm country — pushing some farmers to delay essential purchases until prices became unavoidable, and Politico reported that voters there have had enough.
“We’re leading the nation in farm foreclosures,” said Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat, speaking after winning his primary Tuesday. “Farm suicide rates skyrocketing. And so the Trump signs and Trump flags are coming down, because they say we’ve been betrayed.”
The sense of disillusionment is spreading beyond Democratic circles. Drew Klein of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group, issued a stark warning to his own side. “If voters do not trust Republican elected officials and candidates with the future of the economy, they’re not going to vote for them this November,” Klein said.
Iowa farmers — a traditionally Republican-leaning bloc — voted heavily for Trump, but the trade wars and tariffs have hit them particularly hard.
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Aaron Heley Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a fifth-generation farmer, said the pain is widespread and cutting deep. “People are feeling a lot of pain right now and not seeing a lot of action to match rhetoric,” he said.
Democrats are now targeting Senate and governor’s races simultaneously for the first time since 1968, as well as three of the state’s four House seats, and they sense an opening that Trump helped create.
“It feels different,” Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic challenger to Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) who won her primary Tuesday. “I have been one of the only [Democrats] to win in those years, and that felt pretty lonely. But this feels really good.”
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