Rural Economic Angst Frays Republican Coalition as Trump’s 3-Race Farm Country Edge Wobbles
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Oct 18
Rural Economic Angst Frays Republican Coalition as Trump’s 3-Race Farm Country Edge Wobbles
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 18
Summary
Farm-country frustration is widening the midterm battlefield as some of Donald Trump’s most reliable rural backers weigh staying home rather than crossing party lines.
Tariffs, the war in Iran and higher costs for tractors, fertilizer and fuel are driving the discontent, while ranchers also resent the administration’s move to drop import tariffs on foreign beef.
Republican candidates are already on the defensive in districts the party has held for a generation, even though Democrats remain unpopular in many of these areas on cultural issues.
Trump carried farmers and ranchers by double-digit margins in all 3 of his presidential races, but the emerging risk is lower turnout from voters once willing to drive 20 miles through a storm to support him.
With farm debt hitting $605 billion, will the controversial lifting of beef tariffs trigger mass rural bankruptcies before consumer prices actually drop?
As input costs soar and local hospitals vanish, what hidden breaking point threatens the future of America's agricultural heartland?
Can new micro-grants and modernized agricultural technologies save small farming communities from the crushing weight of skyrocketing fertilizer and fuel costs?