Republican dominance in farm country has neared the point where only a handful of major agricultural districts are in play in the November election, but the GOP hold on the House is so tenuous that races for those seats could potentially determine which party wins control.
Only six of the top 100 House districts in terms of agricultural production are rated either toss-ups or leaning toward one party or the other, according to the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Four of the six seats are held by Republicans, three of whom are in their first terms: John Duarte of California, who represents the nation’s seventh largest farming district in terms of agricultural sales in 2022; Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, and Zach Nunn of Iowa. The fourth Republican who is considered vulnerable is David Valadao, who like Duarte represents a district in California’s Central Valley that favored President Joe Biden in 2020.
The two most vulnerable Democrats, both House Agriculture Committee members serving their first term in Congress, are Don Davis in North Carolina and Eric Sorensen in Illinois.
Despite the significance of agriculture to their districts, the races are likely to swing on national issues and the the presidential race, says Erin Covey, House analyst with the Cook report.
Republicans currently control the House 218-213. There are four vacancies, three of which are in seats that were held by GOP members.
House races across the country “have just become so nationalized. So, it’s the same issues you’re seeing everywhere – the economy, immigration, abortion to some extent," Covey said.
Nunn’s race in Iowa’s 3rd District is no exception. The district includes metropolitan Des Moines, but still ranks 26th in agricultural production, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. For rural voters, “overwhelmingly, they're concerned about government overreach, they're concerned about the economy and then what’s going on at the southern border,” Nunn told Agri-Pulse.
He also touted his work on the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill. “Overwhelmingly in the farm bill, we were able to get 17 of our priorities in, based on what Iowans wanted,” he said, referring to provisions he co-sponsored that made it into the legislation.
He’s running against Lanon Baccam, the son of Laotian immigrants, who served in the National Guard and was deputy undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services at USDA in the Barack Obama administration. He returned to USDA during the Biden administration, working in scheduling and in the Office of Communications.
The Cook report rates the race as "leans Republican" but Baccam is trying to make the case that he can do something about issues such as inflation. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is counting on the abortion issue to swing the race, terming Nunn an “anti-choice extremist.” A new Iowa law would ban nearly all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected.
“The cost of gas and groceries is still too high for working families," Baccam says. "We need to lower costs while creating good-paying jobs everywhere, especially in our small towns and rural communities. Jobs like factory work, manufacturing, building trades, and more should be able to support a family.”
He adds in a statement on his web site, “I will do everything in my power to stop a national abortion ban, and work to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law.”
Here is a look at the other close ag district races:
California 13th District (No. 7 in ag production) – Duarte, a farmer, faces a rematch with state Assemblymember Adam Gray. The results of their 2022 race took so long to count that both attended the new member orientation. Biden carried the district, which includes Merced and parts of Madera, Stanislaus, Fresno and San Joaquin counties. Gray is touting his efforts to preserve water rights of local irrigation districts. Duarte got 54.9% of the vote in the primary to 45.1% for Gray. In California, candidates from both parties run in the same primary; the top two finishers advance to the general election.
California 22nd District (No. 13 in ag production) – Close elections are a fact of life for Valadao, a dairy farmer who is a member of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. He lost his seat in 2018 but won it back in 2022 by narrowly defeating Democrat Rudy Salas, 51.5% to 48.5%. Salas is running again. Valadao got 32.7% of the primary vote to 31.3% for Salas. The district, north of Bakersfield, includes Kings County and parts of Tulare and Kern counties.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here.
Covey says Duarte is considered the most vulnerable of the two California Republicans simply because he’s a freshman. He “doesn't have a history of kind of outperforming Trump in the top of the ticket in the same way that Valadao does,” she adds, saying that Duarte is “definitely trying to cultivate a Valadao-esque profile as a farmer.”
Valadao has been willing at times to buck his party. He voted for impeaching Trump in 2021 and won re-election anyway. In 2023, he voted against his committee’s FY24 spending bill for USDA and FDA after additional cuts were made on the House floor.
North Carolina 1st District (No. 49 in ag production) – Davis was one of four committee Democrats to vote for the GOP farm bill. His northeast North Carolina district has new boundaries since his 2022 election and is slightly more Republican; the race is rated a toss-up.
Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C.Biden would have won the new district by just 1.5 points, making it one of the most evenly divided districts at the presidential level, says Covey. “So, he is quite vulnerable,” she adds. “They got rid of some of the parts of the districts that were majority black, and added in some parts that are very white and very conservative.”
His challenger is Laurie Buckhout, a retired Army colonel who is the founder and CEO of a strategic consulting and services group. She has repeatedly attacked Biden on the immigration issue. “The Joe Biden effect: record-high levels of border crossings, losing 25% of border patrol workers, and rising crime,” she said in a recent Facebook post.
Illinois 17th District (No. 64 in ag production) – Sorensen, who is a slight favorite in a district that Biden carried in 2020, was also one of the four Democrats to vote for the House Agriculture Committee farm bill. Chairman Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., said after the vote that he thought Sorensen had voted for the bill by mistake.
Sorensen faces Republican Joe McGraw, a former state circuit court judge, in November. It’s “a district that a lot of Republicans were really bullish on last cycle and thought that they could flip it,” but Sorensen won anyway, Covey said. The district snakes through much of northwestern Illinois and includes parts of Peoria and Rockford.
McGraw is using crime as an issue. His campaign site says he’s “ready to take on corruption in Washington, and return our district to a safe, free, and economically prosperous community."
Wisconsin 3rd District (No. 29 in ag production) – Van Orden is a slight favorite to win re-election in the western Wisconsin district that Democrat Ron Kind had represented from 1997 to 2023. He doesn’t know who his challenger will be. Small business owner Rebecca Cooke, who touts roots on an Eau Claire dairy farm; state Assemblymember Katrina Shankland, and information technology professional Eric Wilson face off in the Democratic primary Aug. 13.
Van Orden "has become such a polarizing figure" that he has not yet secured his re-election, Covey says. Van Orden, who was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, got media attention during his first year in Congress when he cursed out a group of pages in the Capitol.
He has touted the dairy provisions in the House Agriculture Committee farm bill.
Rebekah Alvey contributed to this report.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
.png?1716326054)
