Inside the Beltway: Heartland power: 90% of farmers back Trump

NEWS AND OPINION:

Many have pondered President Trump’s grassroots support in the nation’s heartland. Democrats, in fact, still marvel — or worry about — the 63 million folks who stood up and went to the polls in 2016 and voted for Mr. Trump. It appears they are still out there, and still support the president in a big way.

Though the nation’s farmers are understandably fretting about their business outcomes, like most folks around America.

But pessimism is not affecting their support for Mr. Trump, according to DTN, a Minneapolis-based research and marketing firm specializing in agriculture, livestock, crops and other related fields.

“While farmers’ confidence is waning in their current and future situations, it is not lessening their support for the current administration. When asked, 90% of farmers polled by DTN said they would vote to keep the current administration, an increase of 15 percentage points from the same survey conducted in December 2019,” the organization says.

“It’s interesting to note that through these challenging times, farmer support for President Trump is at an all-time high. We are seeing that farmers approve of how the current administration is handling the pandemic and its resulting effect on the economy with the recently announced aid packages being distributed to farmers,” says John Teeple, senior vice president of agriculture at DTN.

“It is safe to say that farmers are anticipating a difficult year, and perhaps a difficult number of years ahead,” notes Greg Horstmeier, editor-in-chief for DTN. “Even if their optimism continues to wane, we don’t anticipate seeing a shift in their support for the current administration. We expect farmers, in general, to support the current president in the upcoming November election.”

THE DESANTIS METHOD

“Safe. Smart. Step-by-step.”

This is the motto of Florida’s coronavirus recovery plan, as outlined by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who developed the plan with input from physicians and medical personnel at Orlando Health, a network of hospitals and providers in central Florida.

“Florida has done better than anyone predicted. We have a big, diverse state that requires a tailored and measured approach. Data and science have helped us flatten the curve in a safe way,” the governor explains in a terse tweet. “There is light at the end of the tunnel.”

That light brightens Monday when restaurants, stores and other gathering spots in the Sunshine State will be allowed to reopen — but at 25% capacity. This constitutes phase one of the governor’s plan. He is being prudent, though — excluding Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties from the order, with reassurance that those counties’ turn to reopen would come “soon.”

PONDERING A MYSTERY

Our old friend Deep Woods — a longtime Washington Times reader who indeed lives in the deep woods of the Northeast — is pondering what could be a mystery at the moment

“We have been following the Michael Flynn entrapment travesty and am asking a question the mainstream media should be asking. Why did the Deep State go after him in the first place? He was ex-Obama administration, and one of theirs. Was he just a stepping stone to gain access to President Trump or did he know stuff that needed to be kept quiet? If the latter, the only way to be assured he would always keep quiet was to threaten his family — which they did,” writes Deep Woods.

He also is thinking ahead.

“We have a prediction as well. The last states to open up from quarantine will be red or purple states since that would prevent the president from having his rallies. Just saying,” Mr. Woods concludes.

HEARD ON THE STREET

There is fleeting comedy during the coronavirus pandemic.

A reader shares an example recently overheard in a Texas grocery store:

“I’ve been taking internal sanitizer for years. It’s called bourbon.”

FOXIFIED: MUST-SEE TV

President Trump will get a chance to have a sizable say this weekend on some relatively friendly airwaves and in a significant location.

Fox News hosts a two-hour virtual town hall with Mr. Trump from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday moderated by Bret Baier, chief political anchor and executive editor of “Special Report,” and Martha MacCallum, anchor and executive editor of “The Story.”

The socially-distanced forum is titled “America Together: Returning to Work,” and will take place live from the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Trump will answer viewer-submitted questions. Want to contribute? Viewers can submit questions to Fox News social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

This will be the president’s first sit-down interview with the two anchors since the network’s March 5 town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania — which made history as the most-watched election town hall ever on cable news, according to Nielsen ratings.

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POLL DU JOUR

• 21% of Americans want to end the lockdown and return to normal “right now”; 44% of Republicans, 22% of independents and 4% of Democrats agree.

• 36% of Americans want to return to normal when new cases of coronavirus “decline significantly” in their state; 37% of Republicans, 35% of independents and 35% of Democrats agree.

• 31% overall want to return to normal when there are no new cases in their state; 14% of Republicans, 32% of independents and 42% of Democrats agree.

• 12% overall want to return to normal after a vaccine is developed; 4% of Republicans, 12% of independents and 18% of Democrats agree.

Survey: A Gallup of 7,921 U.S. adults conducted April 20-26.

• Kindly follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.