America’s most farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly backed President-elect Donald Trump in this year’s election by an average of 77.7%.
Trump has appeared on three presidential ballots, beginning in 2016. In 2020 and 2024, he increased his support nationwide, topping 50% in this year’s popular vote.
However, Trump also increased his support this year among farming-dependent counties by nearly two percentage points compared to 2020.
Farming-dependent counties are defined by the USDA as counties where 25% or more of average annual earnings were derived from farming, or 16% or more of jobs were in farming.
There are 444 counties labeled as farming-dependent, although hundreds more have strong agricultural economic ties. Other county categories include mining, manufacturing, federal/state government, recreation and nonspecialized, which includes counties that aren’t considered dependent on any of the above categories.
Most farming-dependent counties are in the central United States. Trump won the majority of votes in all but 11 of these counties.
Some political observers questioned whether Trump’s support would wane among farmers after his first-term trade war, which led to increased prices and a drop in agricultural exports. During the campaign, Trump promised a return to high tariffs if given a second term.
“His policies didn’t do us any good; his tariffs didn’t do us any good,” Lance Lillibridge, an Iowa farmer, told Investigate Midwest.
Not only did Trump increase his support among farming-dependent counties, but more than 100 of those counties supported him with at least 80% of their vote.
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