Trump Rally Can't Hide Kansas Farmers’ Rising Costs

Diesel averaged $6.30 a gallon nationwide on Friday, more than 70% higher than a year earlier, just as Kansas farmers need fuel to harvest crops and haul them to market. President Donald Trump was scheduled to headline a rally near Wichita on Monday, as Republicans poured money into a Senate race while farm businesses faced rising costs and shrinking profits.

“This is a time of year when we use a lot of fuel, and there just isn't much we can do,” said Glenn Brunkow, a fifth-generation Kansas farmer. “The margins are tight, and anything that cuts into that margin really hurts.”

The costs land in the fields

Brunkow said diesel prices stood more than $2.50 per gallon above a year earlier. Farmers have also faced higher costs for fertilizer and seed amid refinery constraints and supply disruptions tied to the Iran war. The work doesn’t wait for campaign season to end.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected net farm income would decline 2.6% this year as production expenses rise 4.5%. Fuel and oil expenses alone were expected to jump nearly 30%, according to the agency’s September forecast.

Brunkow, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, said economic frustration might not necessarily lead farmers to vote Democratic. “I think it dampens the enthusiasm for agriculture producers to get to the polls,” he said. His organization endorsed Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who faces Democrat Adam Hamilton.

Don Hineman, a western Kansas rancher and former Republican state House majority leader, said frustration with the party was growing among GOP voters, including people who had supported Trump in multiple elections. He said farmers understood that Trump’s tariffs had hurt their businesses, and that voters were upset about the ongoing war with Iran.

Recent immigration raids in western Kansas detained more than 100 people, adding immigration to the list of concerns. “We need a secure border — we can all agree on that,” Hineman said. “But we also need workable immigration policy that provides the workforce that the United States has always depended on and will always continue to need.”

The ballot and the money behind it

Trump was expected to speak at 7 p.m. EDT, with stops in Kansas and Iowa intended to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections. Republicans were spending money on Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa amid concerns about voter enthusiasm. The contest is about who holds a seat in Washington, while the pressures Brunkow described are already hitting farm budgets.

Trump won Kansas by 16 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. Democrats have never won a Kansas Senate election. The campaign’s familiar warning about what the other party might do is losing force for some voters. “I am tired of being persuaded by charges that the boogeyman is going to get us,” Hineman said. “I am so fed up with the Republican Party and their willingness to play sycophant to our current commander in chief that I'm willing to consider alternatives.”

Debbie Geneva, 61, of Nortonville, Kansas, said Hamilton impressed her by visiting a local market to meet people, something she said she hadn’t seen Marshall do. She had never voted for a Democrat and remained undecided. Rising health care and everyday expenses had added to her frustration. “The Republicans haven't done the Midwest any favors with that,” she said of trade agreements.

Trump signed an executive order earlier this month easing limits on tax-free use of red-dyed diesel, which he said would save “millions” for farmers. The Trump administration had announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers in December. Brunkow said many farmers “thought it would be better” under Trump, though he thought most would still consider him the better choice in the 2024 election. “He's made some unforced errors,” Brunkow said. “Miscalculations, bad advice, that had unintended consequences.”

Campaign promises meet farm economics

David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, said his group had monitored heavily agricultural states since summer and acknowledged concerns about declining enthusiasm. The group was spending millions of dollars for GOP candidates in Kansas, Nebraska and elsewhere. “Farmers are squeezed between higher input prices and less of an international market because of retaliatory tariffs,” McIntosh said. “The economic environment has not been good.”

Democrats saw an opportunity in those economic frustrations. Former Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who lost reelection in 2024, said there was “no doubt” Democrats would perform better than expected in agricultural states. “These guys got to pay bills at the end of the month, and for a number of months now it's been hard to do,” Tester said. “This is way beyond politics.”

Tester said he began farming in 1978 and witnessed the farm crisis of the 1980s, when “a fair number of my neighbors left town.” He said, “The economics in family farm production agriculture right now are probably worse right now than they were in the 1980s.” Trump was due to travel to Iowa on Thursday, where Republicans were defending competitive races for governor and Senate.

The rally offers voters another campaign pitch. The bills keep arriving.