Democrats won the House and the Senate with decisive flips in Kansas and Iowa; Kansas will send a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly a century. The new majority redefines the farm bill and trade policy.
Democrats won control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the U.S. midterm elections, driven by victories in farm states that Republicans considered safe. The result redefines who will write the next farm bill and trade policy, in a context of record diesel and beef prices, tariffs and a farm bill that never came.
The Democratic wave included nearly half a dozen flips of House seats held by Republicans on the Agriculture Committee. In the Senate, Democrat Adam Hamilton defeated Republican Roger Marshall in Kansas, a member of that committee, meaning the state will send a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly a century; Donald Trump had won Kansas by 16 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
In Iowa — the No. 1 corn, ethanol, biodiesel, hog and egg producer — Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Sarah Trone Garriott is projected to win Rep. Zach Nunn's seat, another Republican on that committee who lost his reelection bid: with 91% of votes counted, Garriott won 54.6% to Nunn's 45.4%. In addition, Democrat Rob Sand, the current state auditor, is projected to win the Iowa governorship over Republican Zach Lahn. In Mississippi, Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, also a member of the Agriculture Committee, remained in a race too close to call.
Democratic campaigns capitalized on voter fatigue over high costs and declining presidential approval. Hamilton and his allies hit Marshall, 66, over the high prices resulting from the Iran war and Trump's tariff agenda, as well as the healthcare cuts in the "big, beautiful bill" Republicans enacted last year. Rising diesel and beef prices hit Kansas' agricultural economy particularly hard.
According to Politico, "a remarkable streak of wins in farm country battlegrounds delivered Democrats majority control of Congress on Tuesday. Now Democrats have to put a vision for food and agriculture policy into action." The results suggested voters were unswayed by recent Republican efforts to shore up the agriculture economy, and the impending takeover of the Agriculture Committees leaves Democrats facing the task of advancing farm policy and mending the social safety net while confronting a White House that may see little incentive to cooperate.
Progressive Farmer noted that Democrats will face pressure to address rising fuel and agricultural input costs, trade concerns and the effects of global conflicts on agricultural markets, while needing to find compromises with the White House.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley broke with the notion that Republicans would not consider a two-year extension of the SNAP cost-share: "I hate to talk about compromising on getting fraud out of food stamps, but there may be some sort of compromise. We'll have to work with the Democrats to get 60 votes to get the bill out," he told reporters. "It'll take some compromise, maybe on this food stamp issue." Republican Arkansas Sen. John Boozman has called the one-year SNAP cost-share delay Republicans' and the White House's final offer.
Grassley called a two-year, $18 billion arrangement "irresponsible," but added: "On the other hand, we have a chance of getting E15 if we get this farm bill passed, and that's $14 billion more in the pockets of farmers, so that's what I've got to analyze." Meanwhile, Mary Kay Thatcher of MK Thatcher Consulting expressed deep skepticism about passing a full farm bill before the end of the year: "We are going to have a farm bill extension," she predicted. "I have no doubt that that will happen."
Former Democratic North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said the result opens a door to a deal: "It's a reset button for bipartisanship as it relates to the farm bill and as it relates to agricultural policy. My hope is that we get back to ag policy being bipartisan, and almost nonpartisan."
Along the same lines, former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said: "You can't run farm policy on just one party. If you do that, you're going to end up going back and forth and farmers are going to get whipsawed. They need to get back to doing things the way they used to do them, and maybe this election was enough to get their attention to make them do that."
