3-time Trump voting farmers 'done' after he 'wrecked the farming economy'

President Donald J. Trump on August 24, 2020 in Mills River, North Carolina (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

In the United States' last three presidential elections, farmers were a strong source of support for Donald Trump. But the president's steep tariffs and war with Iran are creating major hardships for farmers. And according to reporting from CBS News and the conservative website The Bulwark, farmers' frustrations are a definite vulnerability for Republicans in the 2026 midterms — which are now a little over one and one-half months away.

Reporting for CBS News, journalists Emma Nicholson and Nancy Cordes detail the worries of Matt Bell, a 52-year-old soybean farmer in North Carolina — a swing state that Trump narrowly won in 2024.

Bell told CBS News, "I've done this 34 years. I have never worried and stressed like I have the last year … We've cut everything we can cut. The last several years in agriculture have been terrible, and we have, you know, just cut the fat anywhere we could. But we're just getting to the point now there's nothing left to cut. You cannot run without fuel. You cannot run without fertilizer. You have to have that."

According to Nicholson and Cordes, Bell "says his diesel fuel costs have about doubled since last year."

"The war with Iran has driven up fuel costs and created supply chain disruptions as the Strait of Hormuz remains under a naval blockade with a limited number of oil tankers allowed through the critical waterway," the CBS News reporters explain. "And the intensifying conflict between Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia and attacks by other Iranian proxy forces on Saudi infrastructure are squeezing global fuel supplies in the Red Sea and contributing to a spike in global fuel costs … Prices have been so volatile that Bell said the price he's quoted from his distributor in the morning is only valid until the afternoon — when it rises again."

Nicholson and Cordes add, "He can't avoid the expense — his farm equipment runs on diesel. Bell showed CBS News his combine, which he says now requires about $600 worth of diesel fuel per day. That's more than twice what he paid last year … It's not just diesel prices that are hurting Bell's business. President Trump's wide-ranging tariffs have also driven up costs — and left him and other farmers in limbo as the president continues to threaten to impose more tariffs."

Bell told CBS News, "Every piece of equipment on this farm runs on diesel … Everything we're touching, the fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, seed, parts — you know, the whole nine yards, everything that we touch has gone up."

Journalist Wright Thompson described farmers' growing frustration during an interview with The Bulwark's Tim Miller, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP strategist.

Thompson was blunt, telling Miller, "I know a lot of very, very conservative farmers who are just done with all of this. I mean, people who voted for (Trump) three times. Just because of the ways in which the Trump administration has wrecked the American farming economy."

Thompson stressed that frustrated, worried farmers aren't thinking along partisan lines in the midterms — their top concern is their survival.

Thompson told Miller, "Farmers are going to vote for the person who is most deeply invested in the idea of free capital markets at the expense of almost any other social thing. And forever, that was Republicans."

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