Key Voter Group Rages at Trump for Sparking Historic Crisis

Dennis Schneidler / IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect Donald Trump’s farm-country stronghold is struggling due to an economic crisis that farmers say he is making worse.

Trump won 69 percent of rural voters in 2024, according to Pew , while farming-dependent counties in the Corn Belt backed him by an average of 78 percent, according to Investigate Midwest .

Now, those same communities are grappling with soaring costs and unprecedented uncertainty.

Farmers who overwhelmingly backed him in 2024 say his trade war and Iran conflict have sent costs soaring, piled on uncertainty and pushed the agricultural sector into its worst financial downturn in decades.

The Iran conflict has seen energy prices surge.

Gasoline has climbed from around $3 a gallon before the war to more than $4, putting fresh pressure on household finances and undercutting Trump’s promise to bring down everyday expenses.

Amid the uncertainty, polls show voters are increasingly experiencing financial strain, with many cutting back on household spending to make ends meet.

Farmers are feeling the squeeze particularly hard.

Higher fuel costs are making it more expensive to run tractors and other machinery, while fertilizer prices have also surged.

“Inputs are way out of whack,” Matt Bailey, a Nebraska farmer who grows corn and soybeans, told the Financial Times.

A phosphorus fertilizer he uses that cost about $470 a ton a decade ago now sells for more than $900.

“Where do you start with that? How do you budget for that?” The squeeze extends across nearly every part of farming.

Interest payments, labor and machinery have all become more expensive, Brad Lubben, an agricultural economist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told the Financial Times.

“If you look at all the components of the production budget, most of them have gone up substantially over the past few years,” Lubben said.