The landscape of rural Kansas is dominated by open skies, vast fields of grain, wind turbines and big homemade signs proclaiming fervent support for President Donald Trump.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall read those signs, tied himself to Trump and hasn’t lost an election since. But this year, one of Marshall’s key strengths may have turned into a liability with some of Trump’s most loyal devotees: farmers.
On a rainy afternoon on his farm near Wellsville, Kansas, Stephen Kalb sat perched on a tire almost 7 feet off the ground, wrestling a bad bearing out of a used combine he bought to try to stay ahead of inflation.
“Craziest business decision we have right now is we’re standing beside this combine that maybe we need this year,” Kalb said.
Equipment prices have jumped, fueled in part by tariffs Trump slapped on imported machines, parts and steel. Trump’s attack in Iran triggered a spike in fertilizer prices last spring, when Kalb was planting. Now it’s harvest time and Kalb is paying near-record prices for the diesel that powers his combines and tractors. His expenses have mushroomed.
Meanwhile, retaliatory tariffs have cost Kalb potential overseas buyers for his corn and soybeans, depressing the value of his harvest.
“It’s definitely concerning,” Kalb said. “I believe in a global economy. But now, it seems like stuff can change overnight.”
For Kalb, it’s not just that some of Trump’s decisions have been abrupt and costly. It’s that they were made, unilaterally, absent any sort of legislative process.
“Maybe the checks and balances aren’t there,” Kalb said. “There's supposed to be three branches of government; we're worried about who's aligned with one right now.”
Marshall, a Republican, is clearly aligned with Trump. He used his first speech as a senator, shortly after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. He supported all of Trump’s initiatives. He regularly appears on Fox and Newsmax shows to praise the president.
Normally that would be a big plus in Kansas, where farmers have long relied on Republicans to look after their interests.
But many farmers are fed up.
“I think farmers and ranchers in Kansas right now may be the group that is struggling the most with how to cast their ballot this election year,” said Alexandra Middlewood, an associate professor of political science at Wichita State University.
Marshall faces Adam Hamilton, the pastor of a United Methodist megachurch who, until earlier this year, was a Republican himself.
In a normal year, this wouldn’t be much of a contest. Kansas has close to twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats. Trump scored double-digit wins in Kansas all three times he ran for president, and the state hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the Great Depression.
But farmer Merrill Nielsen, a lifelong Republican raised by lifelong Republicans on land his great-grandfather homesteaded near tiny Denmark, Kansas, said times have changed.
“We just have a different situation than we used to have, and different parties than we used to have. So, it’s a whole new deal,” Nielsen said.
Nielsen misses the pragmatic, moderate Kansas Republicans of old, like Bob Dole, who were open to compromise and cooperation with Democrats to get things done for farmers.
“I think Marshall is a result of the current politics of thinking that you have a message to send, rather than a function to do,” Nielsen said.
Marshall’s lugging some personal baggage, too. Before Congress, he was a doctor in small-town Kansas, where he sued hundreds of patients, mostly young mothers, for missed payments. Dozens went to jail.
Like most senators, Marshall is a millionaire, but his only home in Kansas now is a remote, three-room cabin worth less than $125,000.
“People take a lot of pride in being Kansans,” Middlewood said. “And to have a representative that doesn't live in the state most of the time, or maybe at all, right? It certainly goes against that state pride that people have, and being Kansans.”
Marshall faces another problem with proud Kansans: cattlemen, mostly over his unwavering support for Trump.
“Senator Marshall has been put in kind of a tough spot on a few things,” Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden said.
Teagarden said Marshall went along when Trump launched trade wars that cost Kansas beef and dairy farmers access to some lucrative export markets. When Trump temporarily waived tariffs on imported beef to try to lower prices for consumers, ranchers were livid.
Marshall said he was “as frustrated as anybody” as ranchers suffered big drops in the price of cattle.
“My point to the White House is when he does this, this sends the wrong signal to the rancher to keep his heifers rather than selling them into the market,” Marshall said at an August town hall in an effort to reassure residents that the cattle market is solid.
Farmers and ranchers generally appreciate Marshall’s support of Trump’s signature legislation, last year’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut estate taxes for many big landowners.
And Marshall expressed support for farmers last month when a U.S. Senate committee passed a five-year federal farm bill.
“That five years of certainty is going to allow that Kansas farmer to plant a wheat crop this fall, despite maybe having had bad drought and lost their corn crop for the most part,” Marshall said. “When we have a constant supply of agriculture products, this lowers the cost of groceries for Americans. Americans pay one-third to one-half of what other developed nations pay when it comes to groceries.”
(Hamilton said he also "would have voted to advance" the legislation, if he were on the Senate committee.)
Marshall enthusiastically supported Trump’s immigration crackdown, and when Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids temporarily hobbled production at Kansas meatpacking plants last month, Marshall scolded federal agents for not coordinating with local police.
“It's been a tricky line to walk,” Teagarden said.
The Kansas Livestock Association is not endorsing Marshall this time around.
The Kansas Farm Bureau is. And despite their annoyance with Trump and Marshall, many farmers don’t like their options. They can’t imagine voting for a Democrat, someone they believe doesn't know the first thing about farming and disrespects some of their core values.
But there’s no question that Marshall’s close relationship with Trump is hurting him with some farmers.
“I don't know that I was ever supposed to send anybody to Washington, D.C., to support a president,” Kalb said. “I thought they were supposed to support me.”
