Why Should Rural Voters Vote Blue?

The Time Has Come for Real Change

by Doug McReynolds

October 14, 2026

A recent (July, 2026) report from the American Farm Bureau predicts that the combination of lower commodity prices and “volatile” production costs are expected to lead to a $32 billion loss on major crops for U.S. farmers in 2027, up a billion from the $31 billion loss predicted for 2026.

Production costs are volatile all right: a year ago, a gallon of diesel fuel cost a farmer $3.78.  Two months ago, when the article referenced above was written, it was up to $4.80.  Today, it closed above $6.00.  It will cost the typical Iowa farmer one thousand dollars in combine fuel alone just to harvest an eighty-acre corn field.  This is sixty-five percent more than just a year ago, and nearly double what it cost when Joe Biden was president.

A survey earlier this year found that seventy percent of Iowa’s farmers believe that they cannot afford the fertilizer they need to make a crop.  That was in April.  Eighty percent of the potash necessary for the production of agricultural fertilizer is imported from Canada, so the fifty percent tariffs on Canadian imports imposed last month were not even part of the calculation Iowa’s farmers were making when seventy percent of them discovered that they couldn’t afford what they needed to break even.

Until now, Iowa has been enjoying a positive trade relationship with Canada.  In a year we typically import some $3.2 billion in goods from up north—over $200 million in agricultural fertilizer—and sell them $4.9 billion worth of our products, over half of which are agricultural products and machinery.  A pretty good deal for us.  It’s clear whom the Trump tariffs are hurting and will continue to hurt.

(Speaking of tariffs, have you received the $2,000 tariff dividend you were promised by the current administration?  I haven’t.  Let’s see… between that, the $9,000 raise Ashley Hinson hasn’t given me yet and the $5,000 Trump just promised every American adult if we let his party keep control of Congress in November… that’s $16,000 I’m waiting on.  My wife, too.  There will be pie in the sky by and by.)

Over one quarter of all Iowa farm families depend on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for their health insurance needs.  There is no accurate information out there on the number of farmers who have had to take second jobs just for whatever health insurance benefits came along with the off-farm employment, though anecdotal evidence suggests that the number is considerable.  And since the tax credits we used to get for participating in the marketplace have disappeared (thanks again Ashley, Chuck, Joni!), these same farmers paying $6.00 for a gallon of diesel have been hit with an upwards of fifty percent hike in health insurance premiums.  A not insignificant number have chosen to forego health insurance altogether and are just hoping for their families to stay healthy and injury-free.

Meanwhile, the taxes they pay subsidize the affluent who already can and do send their own children to exclusive private schools.  Forty-two of Iowa’s ninety-nine counties—all of them rural—have no private school at all, and another nineteen—also all rural—have only one.  Yet the Republican-dominated Iowa legislature siphons money away from the public schools these fifty-one counties rely on for the education of their children and showers it onto families who disdain public education in the first place.

While researching this, I did read of one farmer shrugging it off saying, “It’s the price we pay to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”  Of course this is thoroughly untrue.  In the first place, Iran already didn’t have a nuclear weapon when the present administration took office, and an international apparatus was already in place to ensure that it never would; that is the truth.  The current mess is completely the responsibility of the current president and his enablers—that is, the spineless Republicans in Congress today.  In the second place, an economic war declared on a friendly neighbor is hardly going to keep anybody from developing any kind of weaponry at all. It is just going to make things harder on the Iowa farm economy.  Closer to home, taking tax money away from public education in rural counties and giving it to those families who can already afford private schools in more cosmopolitan areas is not going to help Iowa farmers any more than eliminating ACA tax credits has already done for rural health care.

I like to think that Iowa’s rural voters can see this for what it is and realize that the time has come for real change in Washington and in Des Moines.  Legislators for us, and a governor for all.  Democrats.

Learn more about Democratic candidates for all local elections here:  https://sites.google.com/blackhawkdemocrats.com/black-hawk-county-democrats-ca/home 

Find your sample ballot here:  https://blackhawkcountyelections.iowa.gov/search/ 

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