Will Farmers Squeezed By Trump's Trade War Vote For Democrats On Tuesday?

No one ever accused the DCCC of being able to chew gum and walk at the same time. This cycle the catastrophic loser organization is totally obsessed with suburban districts and, generally speaking, ignoring rural voters. That's a shame, because many rural voters are open an alternative to Trump rubber stamps. Yesterday McClatchy reported that "many of those feeling the greatest pain from tariffs the United States and China have put on $50 billion of goods are rural Trump voters... Family farmers have lost billions in profits as a whole. They hate the tariffs," but many Trump supporters "don’t appear to be jumping ship. At least not yet." Not yet in deep red Missouri-- but in other areas people in the farm economy are figuring just how bad Trump and his policies and his enablers are for them and their families.

Progressive Democrat Audrey Denney has been working with farmers "one at a time," she told us, during her 10 month campaign in rural northeast California (CA-01 an R+11 Trump district that only gave Hillary 36% of its vote), "learning about how the administration's policies are harming them-- and what they need from a Representative. I’m confident a fair amount of the agricultural community will be casting their ballots for our campaign this November."

Yesterday she was endorsed by the conservative editorial board of the Chico Enterprise Record-- which "hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for Congress for decades, probably all the way back to conservative Democrat Buzz Johnson in the 1970s." The editors wrote that they "don’t take the endorsement lightly." This huge rural district, they feel, needs new representation in Washington:

We certainly hope LaMalfa realizes Trump is uninformed when he blames California wildfires on environmentalists and a lack of water. Does LaMalfa really think it would be good to raise Shasta Dam and displace homes, roads and bridges? He has no problem sending more north state water to the San Joaquin Valley at the expense of the delta? He doesn’t realize that Trump’s tariff war with China and other trade partners is hurting farmers right here? Or that Congress’ inability to enact any sort of immigration reform means some north state farmers can’t find workers to help harvest the crop? Or that it’s better to work with our neighbors in the Mexican government to secure our borders than to alienate them? Or that Trump’s racist dog whistles aimed at blacks, Hispanics and Muslims are offensive to people right here in his district?

Last night James Thompson, a progressive Democrat running in the Wichita area of Kansas, told us that "This Halloween, our soybean farmers are not getting any treats but they all are feeling tricked. One ag producer here in the fourth district of Kansas lost $200,000 because of the Trump tariffs, but will only recover $50,000 because of the bailout. Ag producers, particularly family farms, are feeling the effects of the disastrous tariffs. Unfortunately, many will still vote straight line Republican even though they are voting against there own interests in doing so. Fortunately, many in rural communities have had enough and are also crossing the aisle to vote for me. Ag producers, veterans, small business owners, teachers, and seniors should all be voting for Democrats because Republicans are hurting all of them."

Last year, the United States exported about $20 billion of agricultural products to China of which soybeans accounted for more than half of that amount.

Trump’s 25 percent tariffs are mainly aimed at curbing imports from China, but Beijing retaliated with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans and pork.

Soybean prices fell by about 20 percent after the tariffs were enacted, and have dropped from a high of $10 a bushel to about $8.50 today.

Trump insists he can save American jobs and factories by reworking trade deals. He’s making that case directly to sensitive farmers caught in the crossfire with Beijing during the final campaign stretch largely through corn and soybean country, including two stops in Missouri.

“Don’t forget, we’re the piggybank that everybody wants to steal from,” Trump told farmers attending the Future Farmers of America’s annual convention in Indianapolis on Saturday. “Everybody. We have all the cards, but nobody has ever chosen to use those cards. Honestly, nobody has ever known that we had the cards. They never got it. But we get it now.”

To ease the impact of the tariffs-- and keep the rural vote-- Trump announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers earlier this year. Trump will visit Columbia, Mo., on Thursday and Cape Girardeau next week where he’ll throw his support behind Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley in one of the most hotly contested Senate races. Trump sees the chance to defeat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill as one of the best opportunities to pick up a key Democratic seat.

But the tariffs are the wild card in this year’s election.

Only 28 percent of Missouri registered voters think the Trump tariffs and barriers to imports will protect American jobs and help the U.S. economy, according to a recent NBC News/Marist poll. Forty-four percent says it will hurt the U.S. economy and raise the cost of consumer goods.

Mix in other factors such as the absence of a farm bill and unpredictable weather-- Missouri experienced a long drought this year-- and farming is a high risk industry. Farm income has dropped more than 50 percent in the last five years, according to the American Farm Bureau.

“So farmers are getting squeezed on both sides,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade.

David Keith moved from New Jersey to Racine last year to manage Randy Bryce's congressional campaign. Neither he nor Randy is a farmer or part of the farm economy. David told us that, as an "ironworker who has spent the last 20 years making a living by literally working with his hands Randy feels a kinship with the people who work as hard and are as dedicated to the farmers he's met in the district." David told us that "Randy's seen what extremists' policies do to his bottom line and his ability to get by, take care of his family, and have a shot at staying in the middle class. Randy and the farming community in Southeast Wisconsin know that Washington DC-- Trump included-- is full of bullshit artists who put profit and politics ahead of people... just like Paul Ryan and Bryan Steil. Farmers and all working people alike will be coming together next Tuesday to make history, and elect a regular working person to Washington. All working families will benefit, rural and urban."

Mike Siegel, progressive Democrat challenging reactionary Congressman Michael McCaul in TX-10, told us this afternoon that "The Republicans are testing whether they can motivate rural voters with fear, even while Trump's policies cause the same constituents to go hungry. I am in seven rural counties offering a program of Medicare-for-All, a living wage, and infrastructure investment including high-speed Internet. My opponent, Michael McCaul, wants to talk about a couple thousand refugees who are thousands of miles away and may never even reach the US border. What remains to be seen is whether imaginary enemies are more persuasive than real-life needs. Regardless of the outcome of this election, Texas Democrats will need to continue to conduct rural outreach beyond November 6, to build on the amazing foundation laid by this election cycle. We have put in place relationships and infrastructure that will lead to lasting change in the years ahead, so long as we continue to do the detailed work of showing up, listening, and offering real solutions to the problems of rural America."

Leah Douglas, writing for Mother Jones last month noted how important the traditionally Republican farm vote is for Jess King in southern Pennsylvania. This is family farm country and the GOP hasn't been looking out for their interests.

Her campaign is built on a small army of volunteers who knock on doors, make calls, and engage with voters in person—an old-school effort in an age of PACs and polls. King’s supporters all say the same thing about the candidate: She listens to what people say they need, and builds those needs into her policy priorities. That level of attention is particularly meaningful to local farmers, who feel forgotten by federal policy and neglected by local officials. King is proud that her average campaign donation is $35, and claims that her campaign has mobilized more people than any other Democratic campaign in the district’s history.

The result is something of a local phenomenon. Diane House, a retired teacher who has lived in Lancaster for 30 years and is involved in the local Democratic party, says that there is more excitement for King than for any Democrat who’s ever run for Congress in the area. “She’s there for all of us,” House says. “It’s a kind of Jess movement.”

But the odds of her winning are still long. While Lancaster City, a town of some 60,000, is reliably Democratic, the surrounding rural areas are not. If King is to win, it will require a critical mass of farmers to break with tradition and embrace her upstart candidacy-- a shift that, for many, would be tantamount to assuming a new identity.

...[E]conomic strain has led some farmers to reconsider their vote as the midterms approach. “Farmers are feeling disillusioned with politicians,” says Mike Eby, a local dairy farmer and board chair of the National Dairy Producers Organization. He says they’ve “woken up to the reality” that major agriculture lobbies, and the Republican officials they fund, aren’t always working purely in the interest of the farmer.

“There’s been a lot of propaganda out there for many years” from Republicans who say they represent farmers, he says. “What they actually represent is Big Ag.” The current trend of low prices has driven him and other farmers to “start asking the real questions”-- including why Republicans aren’t challenging corporate control in dairy processing, or why they haven’t backed immigration policies that secure labor for the region’s farmers.

Those questions provide an opening for Jess King, whose candidacy is anything but conventional for Lancaster County. “I love blowing up paradigms as a progressive Mennonite running for Congress,” she said at the October event. A longtime advocate for small-business owners, King often says that both parties have sold out to corporate interests and that she aims to give voice to “average working folks.”

Her agricultural platform calls for stronger antitrust enforcement in the heavily consolidated dairy sector, streamlining agricultural regulations, and providing incentives for conservation efforts like cover cropping and farmland preservation. King says farmers have told her that their top issues are access to healthcare and retaining immigrant workers. Her platform supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants and Medicare for all.

...Smucker’s agricultural platform leans on policies-- such as repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s updated scope of the Clean Water Act and providing incentives for landowners to protect endangered species rather than relying on federal regulations-- that can seem out of step with the problems consuming farmers in his district. His platform doesn’t mention either the dairy-price crisis or the broader problem of low commodity prices. None of the 14 bills he has introduced since taking office are related to agricultural production.