The farmers who love JD Vance

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Jul 31, 2024 View in browser   By Debra Kahn A worker diverts water as a sprinkler system is installed at the Cox family farm near Brawley, Calif. in August 2022. | Gregory Bull/AP ‘WEIRD LIKE HIM’ — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has had a rough week. But you wouldn’t know it from today’s fundraiser in Coalinga, Calif., where he got a warm reception from California’s farming community. California Republicans were quick to brush off his positions on “childless cat ladies” — and eager to turn Democratic messaging on its head by rallying behind the embattled Ohio senator. “We’re weird like him,” said Barbara Hallmeyer, a retired high school drama teacher and a California Republican Party delegate attending the fundraiser. Vance’s greeting is a measure of Trump’s continuing grip on the farm vote and among rural voters, whom he won by a large margin in 2020, according to exit polls. But it’s also a sign that, despite worries in some quarters of the party that Vance is a liability to the ticket, key elements of the GOP base remain supportive even after a wave of negative press coverage surrounding his provocative statements. In the immediate aftermath of Vance’s nomination, top Republicans on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees argued that Vance’s Appalachian upbringing will enable him to connect with voters from rural areas. Vance didn’t mention his troubles at Harris Ranch, a beef-processing behemoth and adjacent hotel that serves as a political watering hole and an oasis for weary I-5 drivers despite the steady miasma surrounding it that’s earned it the unwanted sobriquet ‘Cowschwitz.’ “It does smell like cows,” Hallmeyer conceded. “Others say it smells like money.” Vance’s story of a hard-scrabble upbringing resonated with the farmer-heavy crowd, who’ve faced steadily dwindling water deliveries to the arid Central Valley and a long-nurtured sense of grievance against the state’s Democratic leaders whom they blame for diverting too much of it to endangered fish species. “We are an endangered species,” said William Bourdeau, a co-host of the event and a vice president at Harris Farms. Bourdeau said he originally thought the crowd of roughly 150 attendees wouldn’t be able to match Vance’s haul in Silicon Valley on Monday, where Vance touted deregulation and drummed up antipathy to SEC Chair Gary Gensler. But they ponied up at relatively similar levels, he said, without disclosing specific dollar figures. It’s a reminder that for groups like pistachio and melon farmers, the water wars are what they really care about. Most farmers here have no fondness for the current Democratic administration, despite Vice President Kamala Harris’ California roots and despite the Biden White House’s outreach to rural America through financial support for climate-friendly farming strategies and the fact that farm income rose under Biden in his first three years in office. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they don’t care about us,” said Steve Samra, a grower of pistachios, corn, tomatoes and cotton who dismissed Vance’s troubles as a media concoction. “I don’t think he’s anti-women,” Samra said. “I think his wife was at one point anti-Trump, but I think she’s gotten over that.” Vance discussed the region’s water situation in general terms and the need to maintain food security, according to one attendee. “His whole speech is really about having the ability to work your way up in America,” said Sarah Woolf, an agricultural investor who runs a water management company. She said his disparaging remarks didn’t come up. “I find it a little bit of a picking at something,” she said. “I think it’s amazing how he supports his wife and what she’s doing, and that makes me happy as a woman.” It would take a lot to loosen Trump’s grip on the Central Valley. Despite trade policies that harmed many farmers, residents here fondly remember his appointment of David Bernhardt, a veteran lobbyist for the region’s largest water supplier, Westlands Water District, as Interior secretary, and the former president’s vocal support for the agricultural industry even before that. Bourdeau said he told Trump in 2016, when he met with him several times, that “we need water to grow food. [Trump] said, ‘That’s not even a favor; that’s the right thing to do.’” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at dkahn@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @debra_kahn. What'd I Miss? — Texas’ floating Rio Grande barrier can stay for now, court rules as larger legal battle persists: A floating barrier in the Rio Grande meant to discourage migrants from trying to cross from Mexico into Texas can stay for now, a full federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a previous decision by a panel of the court. The ruling is the latest development in a standoff between Texas and President Joe Biden’s administration over immigration on the state’s 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border with Mexico. — DHS leaders clashed with watchdog ahead of report on Secret Service’s handling of Jan. 6: An internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security accused department leadership of attempting to suppress a highly anticipated report focused on the Secret Service’s response during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s accusation drew a sharp response from DHS’ top lawyer, Jonathan Meyer, who aggressively rejected the allegation, according to a previously unreported June 25 letter reviewed by POLITICO. — Schumer stops short of endorsing Biden’s Supreme Court proposals: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stopped short of endorsing Joe Biden’s plan to overhaul the Supreme Cour t in an interview today, signaling Democrats may be less inclined to follow Biden into new policy fights in the final months of his presidency. Schumer, the most powerful Democrat in Congress and a longtime veteran of judicial confirmation battles, denounced the Supreme Court in the interview as a “morass, both ethically and substantively” but he did not offer his direct support for Biden’s proposed remedies. Instead, he said he was still reviewing Biden’s plan. Nightly Road to 2024 SEPTEMBER SURPRISE — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said today that the central bank might cut interest rates as soon as September, signaling the fight against elevated inflation is close to over. That timing would be especially fortunate for Vice President Kamala Harris. The Biden administration has struggled to convince voters that the economy is doing well, despite low unemployment and rising pay. That’s largely because Republicans have hammered the Democrats over consumer prices, which are up roughly 20 percent since President Joe Biden took office, outpacing wages. Now, with the prospect of a rate cut in the coming months, Harris and Democrats can at least argue that the economy is finally turning the corner on inflation. TRUMP AT NABJ — Within moments of Donald Trump taking his seat on stage, the former president began fighting and arguing with moderators today during a controversial appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference. He pushed back against questions posed to him, claimed to be the best president for Black people since Abraham Lincoln and suggested his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, used her race to help her get elected. UAW BACKS HARRIS — The United Auto Workers today endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, giving her union firepower for the likely contest this November against Republican Donald Trump. UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement that the union’s “job” in this year’s election was to defeat Trump. The union has more than a million active and retired members with a strong base in what the Democrats call the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. SILICON VALLEY SUPPORT — More than 200 venture capitalists, startup founders and tech leaders pledged today to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ run for the presidency. Signatories include venture capitalists Mark Cuban, Vinod Khosla and Ron Conway, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (who has already donated $7 million to the Harris campaign), and many other tech leaders in a list that lengthened during the day. The group appears to be led by Conway, a longtime Harris donor who had pledged his support for the vice president last week. AROUND THE WORLD Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, listens to a verdict that found him guilty of espionage in Moscow on June 15, 2020. | Sofia Sandurskaya, Moscow News Agency photo via AP SWAP SPECULATION — Russia watchers have been glued to their screens as evidence appears to be mounting of a potentially historic prisoner exchange with, among other countries, the United States. Rumors of an imminent swap have surged since Sunday after a number of high-profile Russian political prisoners were reported missing from detention centers and prisons throughout the country. Russian prison authorities have remained tight-lipped, offering lawyers and relatives only crumbs of information about the supposed transfer of the inmates in question, without specifying a destination or reason for the move. As of this afternoon, the list of those who have mysteriously disappeared off the grid included roughly a dozen names, with some of Russia’s best known political prisoners among them. They include opposition politician Ilya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, the co-founder of the rights organization Memorial; artist Sasha Skochilenko; and two former employees of the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny: Ksenia Fadeyeva and Lilia Chanysheva. Former U.S. marine Paul Whelan is also among those who’ve gone missing in Russia’s penal system. The whereabouts of dual citizens Russian-British Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza and Russian-German Kevin Lik are similarly unclear. Notably, there has been no news on the two names most frequently mentioned in connection to a possible prisoner swap; that of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Russia on espionage charges, and Vadim Krasikov, the assassin for Russia’s FSB security service, who is serving time in Germany, whom Putin has openly hinted he wants to swap him for. HAMAS LEADER KILLED — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran after attending the inauguration of the country’s new president, Iran and the militant group said early today. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion quickly fell on Israel, which has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Nightly Number $1.4 billion The amount of money that Boeing reported losing during the second quarter, as the embattled company also named a new CEO, Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins. RADAR SWEEP FENTANYL, EXPLAINED — Three journalists at Reuters set out to understand the fentanyl crisis in the United States, which has contributed mightily to drug-related deaths in recent years. After doing some research, they found that at the tap of a phone, and for $3,600 dollars, they were able to purchase everything they needed from sources in China to make $3 million worth of fentanyl. The process was remarkably simple from the buyer’s side, but that’s in part because the sellers have become so adept at masking their identities and where their products are coming from — making it extremely difficult for the U.S. government to stop these shipments from reaching the United States and getting into the drug market. Read the fascinating story, which includes interactives, here. Parting Image On this date in 1952: Streets were jammed around the Labor Ministry in Buenos Aires as Argentinians mourned their first lady, Eva Perón, who died on July 26. | AP Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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