Today, Explained - The farmers turning on Trump

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

As farmers and rural voters reel from moves made by the Trump administration, Democrats see an opening. This episode was produced by Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Noel King. Guests attend a campaign event hosted by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek in Westside, Iowa. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast⁠.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A few months back, a reporter asked President Trump if he was feeling pressure to make a deal with Iran because the war has made life more expensive for Americans. And Trump said, quote, not even a little bit. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. It was one of those moments. If you don't like Trump, it confirms some things. If you do like Trump, maybe you could let it slide.

But reporting and polling tell us one group of Trump supporters is having an especially hard time letting this slide. and that is farmers. Trump's war and Trump's tariffs are walloping American farmers. For a decade, they've tended to vote Trump and vote Republican. But this year, with razor-thin margins determining who's going to win Congress,

farm country is up for grabs and the Democrats would like to grab it. That's coming up on today, Explain from Vox. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start, Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin?

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Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. We are today explained. I'm Chris Stein. I'm a senior politics reporter for the Guardian U.S. You recently wrote an article that was headlined, small farmers say Trump is turning his back on them. What's going on in farm country? Farmers across the country, generally speaking, are dealing with whiplash and negative economic

impacts from the war with Iran and from tariffs and from other policies that the Trump administration has adopted, which are having a potentially significant effect on the politics ahead of the midterms in November. The obvious one is the war with Iran and how it's impact. oil prices and, you know, all the different products that we use that are made from oil. And agriculture is an industry that is particularly exposed to that because not only do farmers drive themselves, they also use a lot of diesel on the farm, and the whole agriculture supply chain relies on diesel, and prices for that have really increased. Anything that's coming on to the farm or leaving the farm is now more expensive?

It couldn't have come out of worse time. so too have prices for fertilizer, which is of course essential to agriculture. You can't lose money and keep the business going. That's the scary part right now. We're used to dealing with markets going up and down, but when we see such a large increase and there's such a short span of time is what really makes it harder, harder to deal with. So it's just an upward cost driver that I've heard people in a lot of different industries, but obviously agriculture is a big one, complain about. And then of course, tariffs, which have driven up costs for various inputs

and have caused issues for farmers selling, getting their crops to market. So, for instance, China was a major buyer or is major buyer of U.S. soybeans, but after Trump began the trade war with China, the imposition of tariffs, China stopped buying as many American soybeans and started buying more from Brazil,

which is basically the U.S.'s top competitor, and that hits farm country in the Midwest where soy is one of the most grown crops. They've painted us in a corner with this China deal and China buying no soy beans. I mean, they've tore our market in half. It's a huge hit to just have that market wiped out. Prices have gone up 40, 50, 60 percent or more. Equipments gone up and then our prices have gone down.

So it's just kind of a bad recipe. What about the recent reignition of the trade war with Canada? Lake America. Has that been a neat thing for American farmers? Yes. exacerbates the trend. You know, the U.S. and Canada, their economies are intertwined. And so, you know, Canada is a major importer of U.S. dairy. It's involved in the supply chain for agricultural implements, you know, farming equipment that's used on farms. So, and now they're in a

trade war with retaliatory tariffs. And American, you know, producers of those are going to have just one more barrier to finding markets for their products. President Trump is in a tough position these midterms because, in particular, of the question of affordability. Things in the U.S., a lot of people feel, are too expensive, including grocery prices. He recently issued an executive order about beef that is intended to bring the price down and instead has made farmers and ranchers quite angry. Can you tell us what happened there? So the president is trying to address something that's certainly a concern for Americans, which is grocery prices and the price of beef. and so he's allowed some imports of beef to try to lower prices.

The United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25% below current market prices. We started seeing inflation rise, you know, including. including in grocery stores, which is extremely politically perilous and, you know, caused Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris a ton of problems. You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. Biden inflation. Biden inflation.

You'll the pain. A Biden inflation. Come on, man. So importing beef would seem like a good idea, except the U.S. has a domestic beef industry, and this causes a ton of uncertainty for ranchers for beef producers, who are basically saying now we have more foreign competition. Our president, who I have voted for three times, he's my guy, but for the last year and a half, he's done about everything he can to beat this cattle market down to try to get beef cheaper for the consumer. Okay, I'm all for that, but not when all of that comes from our pocket. We kind of are finally making some money, and now the government wants to bring in some of this foreign beef and make beef cheaper.

And there's been pushback from Republicans to this. I'm extremely disappointed by this decision from the White House. We all want lower grocery prices, but as I've said for months, we cannot do it at the expense of American producers. I want to lower prices, but this is a bad idea. While not directly criticizing Trump because that can be actually fairly perilous, they're saying this isn't a wise policy, and I stand with my ranchers and, you know, American produced beef. But it just underscores how when prices rise because of supply shocks or other inflationary factors, it's really, really hard for a president to offset them in a way that doesn't have drawbacks

or is even, you know, in a way that is even effective. What are farmers doing about this? They're angry at President Trump, and that's leading them to what? Well, it's unclear quite what it will all amount to. It's important to note that this comes at the same time as Democrats have seen their political fortunes really decline in a, in rural areas. The party has struggled to win a House seat, Senate elections in states where rural voters predominate. And so farmers are, of course, rural voters. They generally speaking, and this is a huge generalization, but in general, they tend to lean right. So there is some hope now among

Democrats that with all these policies kind of cutting against farmers' interests, it can help them win key seats this year in the midterms simply because farmers are either not going to vote for Republicans, you know, stay home perhaps, or potentially even vote for Democrats, that they're going to see their pitch of we're better able to manage the agricultural economy as, you know, worth supporting this time. Okay, so there is an opportunity here for Democrats, certainly, and there's a real risk here for Republicans. How are we seeing the parties messaging to farmers this midterm season? season. It focuses quite a lot on tariffs. That's the best way I can put it, as well as the impact of the

Iran War. Adam Hamilton, who is the Democratic Senate candidate in Kansas, a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, longer than any other state. One of his first advertisements on TV or on streaming accuses his Republican opponent, Roger Marshall, of voting for tariffs and war. while farmers and families in Kansas get cooked by high prices. Tariffs and war. War that's driven up the cost of your gasoline, of your diesel, of your fertilizer, tariffs that have made it harder to sell your soybeans that are causing things that you normally expected to be at one price, to be at a higher price. And so that's basically how they're prosecuting the case.

What are the farmers that you've spoken to want? We've had bailouts for farmers in this country before. Do they want a bailout? Do they want something bigger? What are you hearing? I think they want the federal government to be a more reliable partner and to be predictable. You know, farming is a high risk sort of business, you know, and farmers might go, you know, year back-to-back harvests breaking even or maybe making, you know, a small loss. It can be very stressful.

And so they want someone who's, you know, there for them. They want that security. Is this then one of those midterm seasons? in which you imagine many, many American farmers will shift from voting for the Republican to voting for the Democrat? You know, there was a time under Obama where, you know, predominantly agricultural rural states were electing Democrats to the Senate. They were electing, you know, those types of districts were electing Democrats to the House. And that seems to be behind us, but, you know, they need to, the Democrats need to in the future, find a way to re-engage with these voters.

who swung away from them. It's really important for their ability to continue winning the Senate and the presidency. Chris Stein is a senior politics reporter at Guardian U.S. Coming up next, we're going to heaven. Now, it's Iowa. In the governor's race there, the Maha-backed Republican candidate is mounting attacks on big agriculture and big chemical companies, blaming them for the state's high cancer rates. The Democrat has made those same issues part of his campaign, while also offering a message of unity

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That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the business phone system built so you never miss a call. With Quo, all your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place. So anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. Oh, and here comes AI. Quo's AI can automatically log calls, generate summaries, and flag next step so nothing falls through the cracks. Money is on the line. Hello. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free. Plus, get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash explained. That one more time for the road is QUO.com slash explained. Quo, money is on the line. This is Today Explained. I'm Laura Bellin. I am the publisher and primary reporter of the Iowa political website Bleeding Heartland. And I'm also the part-time.

political reporter for a KHOI community radio and Ames. This midterm season, all eyes, a lot of eyes, millions of eyes seem to be on Iowa. What is going on? Why is Iowa so crucial? For one thing, Iowans could determine control of Congress in the next two years. Three of our four congressional districts are highly competitive. So the U.S. House majority could literally hinge on what happens in Iowa. And we also have an open U.S. Senate seat. So if Democrats are to have any chance of gaining control of the Senate, it would be very helpful

to pick up the Senate seat in Iowa. But more broadly, what has happened in Iowa, where we used to be a swing state and we've moved into the red column, is not unique to Iowa. Every part of the country that looks like Iowa has seen the same trend of voters moving away from Democrats. It's happened especially in these working class communities where the electorate is predominantly white people without a college degree. So Iowa as a whole, voted for Barack Obama twice and then voted for Donald Trump three times. So if Democrats can figure out how to start winning again,

or at least losing by less, in that kind of area, it could have implications not only for the future of Iowa, but for other states that have similar areas, places like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. What are the main issues that people there are voting on and campaigns are campaigning on. Well, the high cost of everything is definitely the top issue. So for Republicans, they're saying these, what they call now the working families tax cut, that's their rebrand from what used to be called the one big beautiful bill talking about that as a way to lower cost.

Taxpayers across Iowa are seeing real relief through bigger refunds and higher take home pay delivered by the historic working family tax cuts bill. But Democrats have really been hammering on the tariffs and the war in Iran driving up the cost of everything. Iowans are struggling just to keep food on the table, a roof above their head, pay their electric bill. And now with this war in Iran, be able to put gas in their tank. Also, health care, the health care costs have skyrocketed. There are some initial steps that we can take legislatively and with policy that will actually help relieve the costs of health care. So all of the Medicaid cuts.

In Iowa, it's going to be so, so hard for our rural hospitals here to stay afloat. We've seen health care access be an issue because we've already seen some clinics close. And the companies that control those hospitals or clinics have talked about how it's partly a reaction to the big Medicaid cuts that were passed in that budget reconciliation bill. According to many polls that I've seen, Trump is underwater in Iowa. His policies are not popular. The tariffs are not popular in Iowa. They're widely understood to be hurting the Iowa economy. Anyone can see that the cost of everything has gone up.

Okay, so Trump is less popular this year. Makes me wonder, what are the Democrats doing to campaign on that? Are they running on Trump? Most of the Democrats are not running directly against Trump. Rob Sam, the candidate for governor, hardly talks about Donald Trump at all. He really focuses on statewide, issues. And Josh Turrick, the candidate for Senate, it's not that he's running against Trump. He actually

has a TV ad up now that says, I'm Josh Turich, and in the U.S. Senate, I'll work with anyone to fix it, including President Trump. To secure the border, stop the flow of drugs into Iowa. But he is running against the idea that Ashley Hinson has just been a rubber stamp for policies that have hurt Iowa. So whether that be the war in Iran, the tariffs. And so it's more of a running against the Republicans who have been a puppet rather than running against Donald Trump himself. Let's talk about that governor's race and Rob Sand. This guy has gotten a fair bit of national interest. What do you know about him? I followed his career for a long time since he was running for a state auditor the first time in 2018. He's been very visible. He's gone out every year, done 100 town halls a year, a year done them in every county. This is not going to be an event that's just for people in my party.

I want everybody to be there. We're advertising all of them all at the same time because we want people to show up no matter who they are as long as they're Iowans. He is reaching out to independence because Iowa Republicans have a pretty large voter registration advantage. So he's talked a lot about trying to empower independence more in our political spaces.

Can anybody give me a good reason that we have to be Democrats and Republicans? There aren't any. The truth is that these two private clubs have written special legal privileges into the law for themselves because it makes it easier for them to have power. We should change that. We should end that. He's talked about getting Iowa back to divided government. If I'm elected governor, almost everyone agrees that I'm aware of that we're going to have a Republican legislature. That means we're going to have to work together.

I actually think that that's a good thing. As my dad would say, even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then, right? Even broken clock is right twice a day. So let's start acknowledging that every once in a while, someone that we think is dead wrong 90% of the time actually has a point on something that they said. He's talked about how, with the large Republican majorities we have in the legislature, he would be a check on what they've done with 10 years of one party rule.

He used to be a model. It helped me pay rent for a couple of years, so it was good. A long time ago, he doesn't like to talk about that, Oh, I'm sure he doesn't. Yeah, to earn some extra money. Well, it's funny. Republicans post these old modeling photos of Rob San from the 90s, and even Chuck Grassley's campaign account posted some of those over the weekend.

Once upon a time, Rob Sand was a fashion model in Europe. Today, Rob Sand is modeling as a moderate. Don't be fooled by his campaign fairy tale. If elected, Rob San will push his liberal agenda across Iowa. Vote Zach Lane for governor. And I always wonder, I mean, Republicans seem to think that they're going to get traction out of that, but I don't really see that as something that Iowans care about at all. I think a more common criticism that I hear is Rob San has a very strong social media presence, has for years.

And in addition to making videos talking about political issues and what needs to be done in state government, he does a lot of things like reviewing pizza. A mac and cheese pizza. So good. And donuts. So it's like a mac and cheese dough. And it's great. And so they try to portray him as someone who's not serious about his job.

But I think that that's just more. He has this goofy online persona. And I don't really think it's a detriment to his campaign. But yeah, they do try to bring out those modeling photos. When they try to use this against him, he needs to play it up. Serve Blue Steel. Getting a modeling contract is like Birthright for white boys who look like stretched out Culkin. And he did it while,

graduating from Brown and then came back to Iowa. Can't really fault him for that, well. Tell me more about the town halls. We've seen a certain type of Democrat emerge in the last few years and become very visible this campaign cycle. And this is the kind of the Abdul al-Sayyad Democrat, which is to say, angry at the Democratic Party, angry at the direction of the country. Democratic Party brand is so bullshit.

Rob Sand, from what I've seen of him, does not seem like. Anger is what he wants to tap into. But tell me what you've seen when he's out in public. No, he does not strike an angry note. And he's not really part of this whole debate between progressives and moderates or centrists in the party. He's really tried to chart, I would say, a completely different course of saying that he wants to get back to common sense government, focusing on the issues that people can agree on. He's talked about how if he's governor and the legislature signs him culture war bills, we're going to have veto ceremonies instead of bill signing ceremonies that he doesn't want to do any of this culture war thing. He talks about

people being exhausted. And one thing that he does at the beginning of every town hall is he asked Raise your hand please if you're a registered Republican voter here tonight. Please raise your hand if you're registered independent voter here. And he asked everybody to applaud for those people. Thank you to our Republicans. Thank you. And then just to prove that Democrats Republicans can work together with Independence to, I'd like us to sing. He has everybody in the room sing the first verse of America, the Beautiful, together. And he talks about how our politics has become so divisive.

And it's because the way he frames it is that two private clubs, as he frames the major parties. People who run these private clubs, they want us to be mad at each other because it makes us easier to control. I don't want you to be mad at your neighbor. I want you to love your neighbor. And so I want us to take a minute here just to sort of re-discover what that might feel like, okay? He says,

they're trying to make us hate people we used to love, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the division. And he doesn't want us to hate our neighbors. And when he's criticizing his Republican opponent, Zach Lane, and one of his main talking points is that Zach Lane doesn't live full-time in Iowa, that he's a part-time Iowa

and spends a lot of time in Kansas. But before he even gets to that, he leads into it by saying, there's one thing that I want you to remember about my opponent. That's the most important thing. He's a human being. Right in, left wing, one bird. The Democrats need a candidate, a type of candidate who can win in red states. Rob Sand is interesting because it seems people have identified him as,

possibly that thing, possibly that template? What do you think? I don't know how easy it would be to replicate Rob San. He grew up in a small town. He grew up hunting and fishing. He talks about his faith. I don't know that everybody would be able to pull that off so naturally. But sometimes when people ask me, well, what happened to Iowa?

It's not anything specific to Iowa. It's every part of the country that looks like Iowa has seen the same trend of Democrats losing ground. It's the same reason Trump was able to win the states that used to be. be called the big blue wall, the Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. It's the same reason Ohio has moved into the red state category. So I think people are watching Iowa, especially Rob San and Josh Turrick, the candidate for Senate, because if Democrats can find a way to turn things around in those types of areas, the working class communities that are predominantly white, there could be lessons that apply to other states.

Laura Bellin is publisher of the Iowa political website Bleeding Heartland and a political reporter for K-H-O-I Community Radio in Ames. Today's show was produced by Peter Balin-on-Rosen and edited by Jolie Myers. Our engineers are David Tadishore and Bridger Dunnigan. Gabriel Duneshoff, check the facts. The rest of the team includes Heidi Muagdi, Miles, Brian, Patrick Boy, Daniel Hewitt, Kelly Wessinger, Ariana Espuru, Dustin DeSoto, Denise Guerra, and Sean Ramos firm,

our supervising management, Avisha, Artsy, Amina El Sadi, Miranda Kennedy. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Today, Explained, is distributed by WNYC, and this show is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. For more podcasts, you can visit podcast.com. And you can listen ad-free by signing up to become a member, Vox.com slash members. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar-raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 20, kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.