Not simply good, but also hard

Let’s see how going red has worked in the Hawkeye State [gift link]:

When President Trump announced a $20 billion bailout for Argentina this month, Larry Ory, 86, a farmer in Earlham, Iowa, could hardly believe it, especially after boatloads of Argentine soybeans began shipping to China, a once-critical customer for Mr. Ory’s family.

For Iowans, losing China’s soybean market in the president’s trade war was only one of many economic shocks that have hit the state since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term. The cost of tractors and fertilizers have shot up with his tariffs. Labor has grown scarcer in agribusinesses. Major manufacturers have laid off workers. Even the ubiquitous wind turbines that provide income for some Iowa farmers are in the president’s sights.

“Right now, we’re fighting different economic wars all at once,” said Summer Ory, 37, the wife of Mr. Ory’s grandson, Dan. The couple works in the family’s farm business. “You can sustain it one at a time, but right now it’s death by a thousand paper cuts.”

Ms. Ory said she votes in every election, but she, like Mr. Ory, declined to say who she cast her ballot for last November.

Since siding with Barack Obama twice, Iowa has become a stronghold for Mr. Trump. Yet perhaps no state has struggled more with his economic policies. During the first quarter of 2025, Iowa’s gross domestic product dropped by 6.1 percent, more than any other state aside from neighboring Nebraska.

Manufacturing, which drives 17 percent of Iowa’s economic output, has been hit with higher production costs in part because of steep tariffs on inputs like aluminum and steel. Meatpacking plants, which help make Iowa the nation’s leading pork producer, rely heavily on foreign-born workers, hundreds of thousands of whom saw their legal status stripped away by the president. Mr. Trump’s war on renewable energy also threatens the wind industry that produces more than half of Iowa’s electricity.

And Iowa also figures to be disproportionately damaged by the administration’s defunding of SNAP.

But at the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe:

And many Iowans remain loyal. Doug Keller, 63, who farms about 15 miles southwest of Waterloo, said he was hopeful the president will reach a new trade deal with China that will benefit farmers in the long run. Matt Wyatt, 51, who also voted for Mr. Trump, agreed.

“Money is tighter than it should be,” said Mr. Wyatt, who works with Mr. Keller to grow corn and soybeans on close to 1,500 acres of land. “But we try to stay optimistic around here.”

For now, times are tough. Iowa is the country’s largest producer of corn and second-largest producer of soybeans. America exports as much as half its soybeans, and the vast majority of that had gone to China — $12.6 billion worth last year.

But this year, China stopped purchasing soybeans from the United States to retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs. American producers have spent decades working with people in China on how to use soy in animal feed, part of an effort to build up that growing market. Mr. Leeds said he has traveled to the country 25 times and used dollars paid by Iowa farmers to foster strong bonds with Chinese importers.

The midterms are going to be a real text of how much material conditions actually affect voting behavior in this partisan context.