An old newshound sniffs a rural shift

Penpal David Yepsen senses a shift heading into the midterm elections: Rural folks are honked off and voting for change.

The retired political columnist for The Des Moines Register and former host of Iowa Press on public television has a pretty good sniffer pointed at the prevailing winds. He wrote me to note that rural turnout bested the record-setting vote for the Texas primaries, and that it tilted toward the Democratic senate race won by James Talarico. In New Jersey and Virginia, Democratic governors were elected when rural Republicans sat home.

Trump is not on the ballot next November. But his tariffs are. So is his war on Iran. Both batter rural Iowa.

“Tariffs have never been a good idea for rural America.  In 1930, Hoover, Smoot and Hawley — all Republicans — imposed tariffs. In 1932 all of them got beat. So it's not rocket science:  When times get tough, the ‘ins’ go ‘out’ with a lot of voters,” Yepsen said. Plus, the party in power historically loses in midterm elections.

Add to that diesel and fertilizer prices rocketing. Farm Bureau last week begged the White House for more relief on top of the $12 billion on its way for producers screwed by his tariffs. Fertilizer costs were rising before the Iran war. Diesel drives the pork to market. Agriculture is hit hardest by spikes in petroleum. “Affordability” is a huge issue in agriculture.

Iran insists it will keep the Strait of Hormuz sealed from traffic, through which up to half of the world’s fertilizer stock passes. This is the biggest blockage of oil shipments in history. Its ripples are likely to be felt well beyond November. The 1974 oil crisis birthed the ethanol industry and almost changed our attitude toward oil addiction. It helped lead to the Farm Crisis.

Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson is sticking tight to Trump. So is Randy Feenstra in his run for governor. Trump’s policies and his war are not playing well here. We don’t know how much cash Republicans will lay down on Iowa to maintain control of Congress. We don’t know what the price of gas or corn will be. The Republicans are split and discouraged by pipelines taking farmland. If Trump thought this were all playing well in remote areas he would not have stumped first in Iowa, followed by Ohio and Kentucky, in his midterm campaign.

“Rural people aren't yet headed to the courthouse to capture a judge and threaten to castrate him,” wrote Yepsen, who was reared in Jefferson and understands western Iowa. “But in the quiet of the voting booth, they'll  make a different mark this year — provided the Democrats offer some candidates worth voting for. If not, they'll stay home and not vote at all.”

It rings true in Northwest Iowa. Catelin Drey flipped a red Senate district in Sioux City to blue — a 21% swing —  in a special election. Her opponent was an ardent Trump acolyte. She ran as a mom struggling with costs, and more recently is detailing her treatment for cancer (successful so far). She is married to Storm Lake native Tyrel Drey.

Says Yepsen:

“While there's  a lot of opportunity for Democrats they always seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Are we going to talk about which people get to play athletics and what bathroom to use or do we talk about water quality and cancer?”

Rural people worry about polluted air and water just like people in Des Moines. They also share an antipathy toward high property taxes, which Republicans will not solve before the midterm elections.

Yepsen says Sand looks like he could get carded in a bar but he bagged a trophy buck and managed to get elected to statewide office when no other Democrat could.

Chris Jones will help turn out the base with his full-throated indictment of corporations destroying Iowa as he runs for secretary of agriculture. The Iowa City Democrat is attracting a lot of attention to the issues even if he is climbing a steep hill against incumbent Secretary Mike Naig of Cylinder.

Rural voters are fed up with low wages, unaccountable elites who disregard or ridicule them, polluted air and water, and schools that go dark. They want their hometown to thrive as it did not so long ago. This should be the richest place on Earth, but it gets tougher all the time. People are dispirited by two systems of justice and wars of whimsy.

They voted for change with Trump. Not the sort of change that raises gas and food prices while bringing Iowans home in a body bag from somebody else’s holy war. The Republicans hold a huge Iowa voter registration advantage. Democrats could blow it. If they do, the free and the brave should be prepared to take cover.