Republicans across the country are facing a tough election year. But for GOP lawmakers in farm country, 2026 could be especially brutal.
Tariffs, beef imports and high fuel and fertilizer prices are hitting agricultural communities especially hard. At the same time, America’s heartland has become a stronghold for President Donald Trump and Republicans.
The situation has created a delicate balancing act for the GOP, as Republicans try to defend the president and his policies while also recognizing how Trump’s decisions have complicated the economic realities facing their constituents.
Diesel prices hit a record-high on Sunday, at $5.90, while gasoline reached about $4.15 a gallon, a record for Labor Day weekend, according to AAA. The war with Iran, now more than six months old, has disrupted global fuel markets and added to costs for farmers who rely heavily on diesel.
On top of it all, the escalating trade dispute with Canada is threatening agricultural exports and raising concerns about the cost of machinery and other goods. And a recent Trump administration decision to temporarily expand tariff-free imports on lean beef is further complicating life for cattle ranchers.
The balancing act for the GOP was on full display last week, when the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with House Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Behind closed doors, lawmakers raised questions about how ongoing negotiations with Canada, Russia sanctions and other trade policies would affect their states and districts. Rep. Zach Nunn, an Iowa Republican who represents a swing district, pressed Greer on the increase in beef imports. He planned to deliver the same message to President Trump during a White House dinner that night for Republicans in vulnerable races.
“I applaud him for coming up with ideas,” Nunn said of Trump on Wednesday. “But I also got to say: I got to take care of folks back home.”
“If you really want to have Made in America,” Nunn continued, “I think you start with your farmers and ranchers, and they shouldn’t have to suffer for a policy decision or even a short-term law.”
As Greer left the meeting, the U.S. trade representative pushed back on the characterization that Republicans were frustrated with the administration.
“Frustation’s is not the right framing,” Greer told reporters. “The reality is, all those members understand exactly what the president’s doing… and they want to make sure they can understand how to message it.”
Asked if his concerns about the beef imports were merely a messaging issue, Nunn told MS NOW: “Ask a cattleman who’s taken a heifer to market, and you’ll find out the real answer on that.”
Nunn’s concerns reflect a larger tension among Republicans in farm country. The beef-import decision has prompted pushback from lawmakers already feeling pressure from constituents facing high prices, even as the administration argues that the policy will help lower costs for consumers at the grocery store.
But the decision is only complicating a political environment for Republicans that was already complicated. The party in power usually loses House seats during midterm elections, and high living costs and President Trump’s approval ratings have created additional challenges for Republicans.
Those pressures, however, are particularly acute in farm country — and the political case for Republicans from those areas is even more difficult.
A new survey released Sunday by the NBC News Decision Desk marks the first time in the unit’s polling that fewer than 50% of Republicans say they “strongly” approve of the president’s job performance.
Trump’s approval rating has also hit a new low in polling conducted by NBC News, with fewer than 50% of Republicans saying they “strongly” approve of the president’s job performance, according to a new survey released Sunday by the NBC News Decision Desk.
Among rural voters — nearly two-thirds of whom voted for Trump in 2024 — support has fallen to 44%, according to a July Fox News poll.
The decline in polling is only a symptom of the problem, however. Across the country, Republicans from farming areas are seeing their support dip as Trump makes decisions that hurt farmers. But they’re also aware that many of their constituents still support the president, particularly the Republicans who they rely on to send them back to Congress.
It’s a unique problem for many GOP lawmakers.
Just ask Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska. He’s not happy about the beef imports. But he said Republicans also need to “celebrate the positives,” including the bipartisan housing bill, increased commodity crop prices and tax cuts made in last year’s reconciliation bill.
“Those are the messages we have to get out,” Flood said. “Quite frankly, the Democrats have been better at shaking the trees, trying to tell people all these terrible things are happening. But when you really look at the results, even though it wasn’t pretty as we went through all of this, Republicans have delivered to the American people.”
Still, Republicans know that the increase in fuel prices presents a real problem, particularly when Democrats are able to draw a direct connection between Trump’s decision to attack Iran and higher costs at the pump.
It’s one of the reasons Rep. Ryan MacKenzie, a Republican in a swing-district in Pennsylvania, said he wants to see the war “wrapped up as quickly as possible.”
“That is definitely something that we’ve advocated to the White House,” MacKenzie told MS NOW. “If that is not possible, economic sanctions like they’re proposing are very important.”
Asked what congressional Republicans need to do to support farmers during a period of economic insecurity, Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., blamed the Senate.
“You’re on the wrong side of this building,” he told MS NOW.
“You’ve got to walk over there to the Senate and ask them to show up for work and to get the farm bill done that we sent over to them about five months ago,” he said.
Nunn told MS NOW that allowing year-round nationwide sales of E15 — gasoline blended with 15% ethanol — would be one way to address the rising costs at the pump. The biofuel is generally cheaper than gasoline and increases the demand for U.S. grown crops like corn.
Year-round E15 sales are included in the Senate’s version of the farm bill, but the broader measure has faced opposition and remains stalled.
In June, the House passed its framework for a third reconciliation bill, which included $12 billion in agricultural assistance. But that money is also tied to $73 billion in funding for the Iran war and a $10 billion fund to incentivize aspects of the SAVE America Act — a controversial election security bill that President Trump has demanded GOP leaders find a way to pass.
For farmers waiting for relief, the odds of actions before the midterms are slim to none.
House leadership canceled votes for the last two weeks of September — meaning the House and Senate are scheduled to be in session jointly for only one week before the midterm elections. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters last Thursday that members are on notice to return “if the Senate will move some of these big products that are still awaiting action over there.”
That leaves Republicans in farm country with a familiar political dilemma: They can defend the administration’s policies, or they can distance themselves from them. For now, however, many are simply leaning in.
“I’m not backing away from the president, and I don’t care what anybody says about that,” Van Orden said. “I respect him tremendously for what he’s done for our country. And there’s a lot of something missing in this business — and that’s loyalty.”
Mychael Schnell, Syedah Asghar and Nour Longi contributed to this report.
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