SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Fuel, fertilizer and farm equipment may be costly now, but their prices will soon plummet and make way for lasting prosperity.
That’s the argument President Donald Trump made to a crowd of supporters packed into an airplane hangar in the middle of farm country Thursday night as he seeks to bolster wavering support in traditionally Republican areas with fewer than two weeks to go until the midterm elections.
“We’re going to have Iran finished very soon” he said — a prediction he has made for months without effect — “and your gasoline prices and your oil is going to come tumbling down.”
During a speech that ran for roughly an hour and a half in northwest Iowa, Trump made the case that his administration has fought for farmers and brought the country economic success, despite voter frustrations with soaring energy prices. “We love our farmers,” he said, opening his remarks.
The visit to northwest Iowa is the latest in a string of presidential stump speeches in states like Texas, Nebraska and Kansas that have been reliable Republican strongholds for decades.
More than 77 percent of the country’s most farming-dependent counties voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to an analysis by Investigate Midwest.
Iowans have supported Trump in each of his three campaigns and have had Republican trifectas in state government since 2017. The state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008.
But that support may be slipping as some of the president’s policies create new economic pressures in farm country, threatening Republican prospects as they fight to keep control of the House and Senate in the Nov. 3 elections.
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), who won her House seat two years ago by nearly 16 percentage points, is locked with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek in a toss-up race for Iowa’s open Senate seat. Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn faces a similarly competitive contest against Rob Sand, the Democratic state auditor.
Hinson has recently tried to put some space between herself and Trump, calling for an end to the war in Iran and criticizing the president’s controversial deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on diesel. But Republicans can’t distance themselves too far. They need Trump’s voters.
Even ardent Trump supporters say they felt the pinch of high fuel costs.
At Thursday’s rally, Julie and Mike Pottorff of Sioux City, both retired, said they support the war that Trump launched against Iran because they believe it’s important to keep that country from producing a nuclear weapon.
Trump is doing the best he can, they said, adding that they’re hopeful the war concludes successfully soon.
But “diesel is the top of the pyramid. It affects the price of every good that’s on the shelf,” Mike Pottorff said. “We need to get the cost of diesel down.”
Voters who aren’t as committed to the president have turned against a list of Trump policies that have caused problems in farm communities.
Farmers who sell soybeans and grain to other countries have seen demand for their products decline and future prospects grow uncertain amid the president’s trade wars. Tariffs on farm equipment have driven up costs, and the war has increased fuel and fertilizer prices.
Real net farm income, including government subsidies, has been down every year since 2022, said John Crespi, director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, though record corn crops have buoyed Midwestern farms, and debt levels remain far below the 1980s farm crisis.
“Some farmers are feeling the pinch more than others,” he said. “Overall, a mixed economic picture.”
An executive order signed in August to lower tariffs on imported ground beef — an effort to bring down high meat prices for average consumers — further enraged farmers and ranchers.
And farmers and other people living in rural areas are stretching to afford food and housing themselves, said Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies.
“There’s a great mythology of America that anybody can make it if you work hard, and certainly in rural parts of the country there was, for a long time, a sense of, ‘We’re going to be okay,’” Davis said. But recently, “people who are working hard, who have never wavered, are wondering why it’s so hard to fill their tank or to buy a bag of groceries.”
The White House has scrambled to ease frustrations by deploying new strategies in recent weeks.
At Thursday’s rally, Trump told his audience that he “saved ethanol” by implementing an emergency waiver to allow sales of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol and pledged that if Hinson is elected, he would make that permanent — a major priority for Iowa lawmakers.
Trump also touted a provision in the Republican tax and spending bill that expanded the estate tax exemption, which he argued would help farmers pass down their family farms to their children. And he argued that the economy is booming, in part because of increased capital investment, low unemployment and record-breaking stock market performance.
Earlier this month, he signed an executive order expanding the availability of tax-free dyed diesel, which is typically restricted to off-road use like agriculture. He brokered deals with the Group of Seven nations and with Putin to release diesel supplies to the global market. And on Monday, during a rally in Kansas, he announced $8 billion in new direct aid to farmers struggling with diminished profit margins.
Those efforts, however, are unlikely to be more than “background noise” in the face of broader economic pressures, said Davis.
“Without the farm payments, things would obviously be worse,” Crespi added. “But farmers I know would much rather have certainty in their markets than get a payment.”
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