Rural voters proved Tuesday night that it takes more than party affiliation to earn their vote. While the heartland won’t be turning blue anytime soon, Republican margins in rural counties were down significantly across the country. This helped Democrats gain surprising wins in typical GOP strongholds like Iowa, Kansas and Texas.
According to multiple exit polls, high costs and opposition to Trump administration policies, such as high tariffs and the Iran war, were major factors for voters.
Missouri hog farmer and former Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell said the results don’t show farmers have shifted left. Instead, he said, farmers pushed back against a system where they get paid less while still being forced to pay more.
Maxwell currently presides over the nonpartisan Farm Action Fund. He said the role farmers played in the election outcome was bigger than the numbers may suggest.
“Control of the Senate ran through farm country tonight — Iowa first. Those seats weren't supposed to be competitive, and the reason they were is the farm economy,” Maxwell said. “When ranchers are paid less and families pay more in the same year, voters know something in the middle is broken. That's not a niche issue. It shows up at the checkout, at the gas pump and at the cattle sale, and it showed up at the ballot box”
No place was that more evident than in Texas, where voters elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1988.
Texas farmer Bob Stallman has been enjoying the semiretired life. He spends his days tending to business ventures, working on his property and keeping up with 12 grandkids. But when the Texas Farm Bureau recently endorsed Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton over Democrat James Talarico, he was compelled to get back in the public square and pen an editorial condemning TFB’s endorsement.
Stallman presided over the American Farm Bureau Federation for 16 years. Before that, he led the Texas Farm Bureau for six. Throughout his life, he estimates he’s voted for a Republican candidate between 80% to 90% of the time. Still, he said his jaw dropped when he learned TFB was supporting Paxton.
“He does not have the moral fitness to serve as the United States senator. Everybody in this state knows that,” Stallman said.
Stallman said farmers and ranchers simply need Congress to do its job. To him, that means members from both parties working out their differences and passing budgets and the farm bill on time.
What happens next
With majorities in both chambers secure, Democrats will set the agenda in both the House and Senate for the next two years. Still, they will not have enough votes to overcome a presidential veto without some Republican support. Whether that leads to more bipartisan cooperation or continued gridlock remains to be seen.
Come January, Democrats will hold the majority in both the House and Senate agriculture committees. Those committees will also have new leaders.
Top Senate ag committee Democrat Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is leaving the chamber after winning the Minnesota governor’s race. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., is the presumptive favorite to succeed her, though others could throw their hats into the race.
In the House, top committee Democrat Angie Craig, D-Minn., is leaving Congress at year’s end after losing the Democratic primary for Klobuchar’s Senate seat earlier this year. Reps. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and Jim Costa, D-Calif., are both expected to vie for the seat.
On the Republican side, current House Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., indicated before the elections that he would like to continue in his role as the top Republican. However, Republican congressional leaders would need to grant him a waiver since GOP House caucus rules prevent members from serving more than three consecutive terms as a committee chair or ranking member.
In the meantime, the current lame-duck Congress has less than two months to deliver a farm bill and other ag priorities like additional farmer assistance. While ag committee leaders have said they want to pass a farm bill this year, the prospects for that remain bleak. Then again, it wasn’t long ago that the prospect of Kansas or Texas electing Democratic senators seemed just as impossible.