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Trump faceoff with China exposes GOP weakness in rural US
How many demographic sectors do Trump and the GOP believe they can alienate and still remain in office 2018/2020? Pickings are getting slim. The religious right, the alt right, steelworkers, and miners.
April 6, 2018
Gary Bailey is certain China is trying to rattle Donald Trump voters with its threat to slap tariffs on soybeans and other agriculture staples grown in rural America. The wheat farmer in eastern Washington, a state that exports $4 billion a year in farm products, is also certain of the result. "It's a strategy that's working," he said. If farmers are worried, so are Republican politicians, who depended on small-town America to hand them control of Congress and know how quickly those voters could take it away. Just seven months before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump's faceoff with China over trade has exposed an unexpected political vulnerability in what was supposed to be the Republican Party's strongest region: rural America. The clash with China poses a direct threat to the economies in both red and blue states, from California's central valley to eastern Washington through Minnesota's plains and across Missouri and Indiana and into Ohio. They are regions in which the GOP's quest to retain its House and Senate majorities this fall is tied directly to Republican voters' views about their pocketbooks and Trump's job performance. The signs of fear and frustration about both are easy to find. The soybean industry, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the potential harm to Republican candidates in the fall.
Soy production is concentrated in the Midwest. Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana and Missouri account for over half of all soy produced in the United States. And more than 60 percent of U.S. soy exports have been sent to mainland China in recent years. Trump won 89 percent of America's counties that produce soy, according to an Associated Press analysis of Agriculture Department and election data. In those counties, on average, two out of three voters supported Trump in 2016. Many Republican candidates who represent rural areas Trump won in 2016 are being forced to choose between his trade policies and community interests. Vulnerable Republicans are walking a tightrope. In California's central valley, Republican Rep. Jeff Denham has avoided the issue altogether in recent days. His opponent, Democrat and longtime family farmer Michael Eggman, said Trump's trade policies would shatter his community. The district is home to Blue Diamond Almonds, among smaller nut producers, who send much of their product to China and suddenly face the prospect of 15 percent tariffs. "We all know how hard it is to make ends meet as a small family farmer, and Trump is not making it easier," Eggman said. "Jeff Denham, who claims to be a local farmer, hasn't said one word about it. Where's the outrage?"
How many demographic sectors do Trump and the GOP believe they can alienate and still remain in office 2018/2020? Pickings are getting slim. The religious right, the alt right, steelworkers, and miners.