Farmer Donald is losing rural voters

His budget cuts, tariffs and crackdown on immigrants are making red states feel blue

By Sam Bellamy

Donald Trump’s knowledge of farming probably doesn’t extend much beyond the time he donned overalls and a straw hat and carried a pitchfork onto the stage at the 2005 Emmy Awards to sing the “Green Acres” theme song with Megan Mullally.

Well, that and his many campaign donations from the agribusiness. He definitely understands that crop yield.

Republicans received almost $20.5 million from 271 agribusiness political action committees in 2024, more than double the amount harvested by Democrats, according to the money-trackers at OpenSecrets.org.

Of that, Trump received about $3 million – small potatoes next to Elon Musk’s $288 million-plus cornucopia for the GOP, but still enough to keep a fellow’s hand on the till.

In recent weeks, leaders in the agricultural industry have been reminding Trump rather loudly of their support – and hinting that a drought might hit before next year’s midterm congressional elections if his administration doesn’t stop snatching undocumented workers from farm fields and other places where much of America’s food is produced.

On Thursday, Trump came as close as he ever does to admitting a mistake.

His sorta mea culpa on Truth Social was this: “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”

What’s this? An acknowledgement that many immigrants might actually be hard workers who make valuable contributions to our nation’s economy and quality of life?

Well, not exactly. At the end of that post, Trump also implied that notorious MS-13 gang members are giving up a life of rape, murder and drug dealing to fill those vacated jobs.

“In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs," Trump posted. "This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

Ah, so his sudden reversal is actually about ensuring that violent criminals don’t start picking our tomatoes or washing our dishes. Right.

By Thursday afternoon, ICE agents around the nation were being informed to stop raiding farms, restaurants and hotels. Swooping in on other places of business was still A-OK, though.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Trump’s apparent change of heart – apparent because it’s not clear this policy will remain in place long-term – came about because of Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

In recent days, as immigration raids were stepped up to meet strict quotas for daily arrests, Rollins heard from numerous Republicans in red states who are concerned the backlash could cost them votes next year.

The Times reported: “Farmers rely on immigrants to work long hours, Ms. Rollins said. She told the president that farm groups had been warning her that their employees would stop showing up to work out of fear, potentially crippling the agricultural industry.”

Indeed, the Department of Agriculture estimates that 40% of crop workers are undocumented immigrants. Other research indicates that two-thirds of all workers in the overall ag industry are here illegally.

Growers reported that 30% to 60% of workers have stopped showing up to work after the recent waves of raids, forcing some operations to shut down, according to The Times.

We can imagine – and enjoy – how infuriated Trump’s bloodline-purity czar Stephen Miller must be over this about-face. He’d recently visited ICE headquarters to tell agents to rapidly increase arrests – or find another line of work.

The Times reported that Miller and other White House officials, as well as MAGA groupies like professional hatemonger and podcaster Jack Posobiec, are indeed angry and not likely to let up. “Why not focus on all illegals?” Posobiec said. “Sure, you know criminals go first. The violent illegals go first. But the policy should focus on all illegals.”

A poll conducted in April found that only 4 in 10 rural voters approve of Trump today.

Those “illegals” are hired by the ag industry, as The Times noted, “because they cannot find Americans willing to do the physically onerous work. Often, the workers have been paying Social Security taxes and other federal taxes for decades.”

According to The Times, “Half of the farmworkers interviewed for the National Agricultural Workers Survey, released in 2022 by the Labor Department, had spent 11 to 30 years on farms, and nearly one in five had done so for more than three decades. They were earning an average of $20,000 a year.”

Twenty thousand a year. If they seek lots of government aid, that’s why. And they’re entitled to it – as taxpayers.

In a recent column for MSNBC, Democratic advisor Max Burns pointed out that Republican troubles in rural areas run deeper than Stephen Miller’s ill-thought-out immigration crackdown. Tariffs aren’t popular either, and many in the industry are upset at massive cuts planned for numerous programs that directly benefit farmers, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for low-income Americans. This spring, the USDA also cut $1 billion for a federal food purchasing program.

Burns noted that those cuts – and the recent raids – hit smaller farming operations the worst and do less damage to the factory farms and massive meatpacking plants responsible for most of those campaign donations.

The votes of those farmers – and others in their communities who rely on a strong agricultural economy – appear to be slipping away from Republicans. Burns stated, “An NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted in April found that only 4 in 10 rural voters approve of Trump today.”

Four in 10 – that’s astounding.

House Republicans in swing districts, Burns wrote, are “in a real bind, because they have no good answers for Trump’s betrayal of family farmers.”

Rural voters could stage a pitchfork rebellion next year, tossing out at least some Republicans and turning to Democrats – who support SNAP, who oppose Trump’s ill-planned tariffs, who support more compassionate immigration reform, who have historically looked out for farmers.

Perhaps that rebellion will be enough to tilt the House to Democrats and finally set overdue impeachment proceedings in motion. And by then, even the House Republicans who hang onto their rural districts – and face another election in two years – might turn against Farmer Donald and agree to help send him back to his penthouse view.