Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday unveiled a plan to help Michigan’s struggling small farms, making him the latest Democratic Senate hopeful to court farmers as rising costs weaken Republicans’ grip on rural America.

Farmers are under serious financial strain. Diesel prices, pushed up by the war in Iran, hit a record national average of about $6.52 a gallon last week, according to AAA. Fertilizer prices spiked this spring, just as farmers were buying for planting season, as the war bottlenecked the global supply. But even before the war, many farms were on precarious financial footing: Farm bankruptcies surged nearly 46% in 2025 according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, with the heaviest concentration of filings in the Midwest and South, including Georgia, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota.

With the midterms weeks away, Democrats in several Senate races see an opening in farm country, where their party has long struggled. Trump won 69% of rural voters in 2024, according to data from the Pew Research Center. But a recent KFF/Associated Press survey showed that 57% of rural voters — including 27% of rural Republicans — disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.

El-Sayed, who faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers, rolled out the plan as part of a broader platform that also covers food and water safety. The campaign pieced it together with input from family farmers and members of the Michigan Farmers Union, a source familiar with the campaign told MS NOW, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

“Family farmers are feeling the pinch from Trump’s price hikes as much as anyone, and they are a key part of the coalition that will reject Mike Rogers and elect Abdul to the Senate this fall,” El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said in a statement.

Other Democratic Senate candidates, including Iowa’s Josh Turek, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan, have made similar appeals in recent months.

Ossoff, the only incumbent of the bunch, introduced the Farm Disaster Tax Cut Act in May, which would provide farmers with a tax cut after natural disasters or major revenue losses. It is one of a long list of agriculture bills stuck in the Senate, which is in its last week of session before the election.

Source: American Farm Bureau Federation; Map: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW

The biggest is the farm bill itself. The bipartisan package, which adjusts federal agricultural policy, remains unfinalized and three years overdue. Turek has made passing it a centerpiece of his Senate campaign, and wants a new rule to stop Congress from entering recess if an existing farm bill ever lapses without a replacement.

Turek and Flanagan both back a “right to repair,” which lets farmers fix their own equipment without going through the manufacturer, and both have promised to undo the harm Trump’s tariffs and trade policy have done to farm exports. Flanagan also supports the expansion of biofuels, a policy championed by Midwestern farm-state Republicans such as Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Trump administration officials acknowledge that farmers are struggling. But Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have blamed the problem on former President Joe Biden rather than Trump’s economic and foreign policies.

The Agriculture Department’s own numbers cut against that. The federal government is preparing to spend about $44.3 billion on direct payments to farmers — up 45% from 2025 and more than 400% more than was spent in 2024, the last full year of Biden’s presidency.

Source: USDA; Chart: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW

Some Republican candidates have started to distance themselves from Trump, or at least parts of his agenda. Rogers released an ad last week that stated the war in Iran “needs to end, and end quickly.” Rep. Ashley Hinson, who appears to be in a tight race with Turek in Iowa, voiced a similar sentiment last week. Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio did as well. Both initially supported the war but have changed course within the past month.

Steve Kuiper, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told MS NOW on Monday that diesel prices have Iowa farmers “bleeding money,” and could be enough to cost Republicans votes.

“If people feel like the Republicans aren’t doing [it] for Iowa, Iowans are not going to vote Republican,” Kuiper said.

Nicole Akumatey, Nnamdi Egwuonwu and Hannah Marr contributed to this report.

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