Rural Voters and Farmers Are Turning on Trump — And the Numbers Show It

For decades, rural America has been the foundation of Republican electoral power, delivering the wide margins that carried Donald Trump to victory in 2016 and again in 2024. But a striking new poll suggests that foundation is cracking — and farmers struggling to keep their operations alive may be driving the change.

A Fox News poll released this week shows Trump's approval rating among rural voters has turned negative for the first time since early 2025, a shift that carries real consequences for Republican candidates running in this year's midterm elections.

What the Poll Actually Shows

The survey, conducted May 15–18 among 1,002 registered voters nationwide, was jointly run by Beacon Research, a Democratic-aligned firm, and Shaw & Company Research, a Republican-aligned firm. Voters were reached by landline, cellphone, and online text surveys, all drawn randomly from a national voter file. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Trump's overall approval rating currently sits at 39 percent — just one point above its lowest point in this polling series. But the more telling movement is happening among specific groups that have historically been among his strongest supporters.

Among rural voters, Trump's net approval — the difference between those who approve and those who disapprove — has swung a dramatic 34 points. In early 2025, he held a +20 net approval with rural voters. By May 2026, that number had fallen to -14. The sharpest single drop came between April and May of this year, when net approval among rural voters fell 16 points in a single month.

Among rural white voters specifically, the slide has been nearly as steep — a 33-point drop from +27 in early 2025 to -6 in May 2026.

Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who co-conducts the survey, described what he's seeing in direct terms.

"Despite consistently strong GOP support, the president's numbers are leaking a bit," Shaw said. "Make no mistake; it's all about affordability. Independents jumped ship in 2025, and now non-MAGA Republicans and other core constituencies are wavering."

The Economy Is the Core Issue

Across the full poll, just 29 percent of voters approved of how Trump is handling the economy, while 71 percent disapproved. Rural voters tracked almost exactly the same: 30 percent approved, 70 percent disapproved.

Inflation was the single weakest issue for the president. Only 24 percent of all voters approved of his handling of rising prices, while 76 percent disapproved — the worst rating of any policy area tested. Among rural voters, 28 percent approved and 71 percent disapproved.

On foreign policy, 38 percent of voters overall approved and 62 percent disapproved, though rural voters were somewhat less negative at 42 percent approval. Border security — long one of Trump's strongest issues — has now dipped to net negative territory for the first time this term, with 49 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving nationwide. Rural voters still lean positive on the border at 54 to 45 percent approval.

Farmers Are Feeling It in Real Dollars

Behind the poll numbers is a deepening financial crisis playing out on farms across the country. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, farm bankruptcies rose 46 percent in 2025 compared to the prior year — a figure that reflects how badly rising costs and debt loads are hitting agricultural operations.

Those pressures have gotten worse in 2026. The escalation of conflict involving Iran has pushed up fertilizer and diesel prices, two of the largest costs in any farming operation. When those input costs rise, the margins that keep family farms solvent can disappear quickly.

Willis Nelson, a farmer in Louisiana, described the situation plainly in comments to MS Now, explaining that his family has had to cut back on fertilizer use because the finances simply don't allow for normal operations.

"We're not financially able" to operate as normal, Nelson said, adding that his multigenerational farm faces the prospect of bankruptcy. "It's tough, you know, very tough on us."

Ohio farmer Fred Yoder put specific numbers to the strain in comments shared by Farm Action from an interview with US Farm Report.

"It's costing us about $1,500 of cash per day to run two tractors," Yoder said. "I spent many years buying potash for $90 a ton, and now it's $670 to $700 a ton. Our big problem is the input costs. I haven't seen anything this bad since the 1980s."

Beyond rising costs, trade tensions have also hurt farmers who depend on selling crops overseas. Reduced demand from China — particularly for soybeans — has left many producers with weaker prices and fewer reliable buyers. Adding to that unease, Trump's recent comments during a trip to Beijing defending Chinese purchases of American farmland drew a cool reception from farmers already concerned about foreign ownership of agricultural land.

What the White House Says

Administration officials pushed back on the poll results, characterizing them as a temporary snapshot rather than a meaningful trend.

White House spokesman Kush Desai argued that the economy has remained resilient under Trump's leadership and pointed to ongoing legislative priorities as evidence of more progress ahead, saying "as this agenda continues taking effect, and as Congress passes more of the president's healthcare and housing affordability agenda, the best is yet to come in the second Trump term."

Spokesman Davis Ingle pointed to Trump's 2024 election victory as the more relevant measure of public support, saying "the ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda."

Ingle added that the administration is "working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more," and argued that results so far are "just the beginning" of what the president's agenda will deliver.

Whether that message lands with farmers watching input costs climb and bankruptcy filings rise will likely become clearer as the midterm election season heats up in the months ahead.