Nebraska is getting what it voted for
Every day brings new horrors of the Trump administration, and nothing comforts that Donald Trump supporters pay the price. In my January 26 article“The Nebraska went great for Trump – and that could kill its economy,” I warned that Nebraska’s dependence on federal programs and his immigrant workforce made him particularly vulnerable in Trump’s policies.
It turns out that I was right. A quarter later, the gross domestic product of the Nebraska has narrowing of more than 6% At the beginning of 2025, binding it with just as Trumpy Iowa for the worst drop in the country. This statistic made the headlines more than a month ago, but what is new is that the Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins had to face The Nebraskans living through the fallout.
The grievances of the farmers were exactly what you expect: their farms were in the short term thanks to the immigration raids, to the prices increasing costs and shrinking the export markets, and the price controls made the sale of crops more difficult.
The delegation of the all-republican congress of the State had a familiar solution: more federal dollars to bail out the same crowd of shoot-up-by-bootstraps which spent years relaxing against “socialism”. As Senator Deb Fischer explained, “there are a lot of risks involved in agriculture. … You cannot control the weather. … This is why these safety nets are so important.”
Remember when the “safety nets” were supposed to be a scourge?
Rep. Don Bacon, who will retire soon And giving Democrats a main collection opportunity in the House, had its own solution: expanding government mandates for biofuels.
“This is the only way to move enough corn and soy,” he said. “Otherwise, you will have a depression.”
If there was a viable market case for ethanol without mandates, it would already exist.
Instead, Trump’s policies could be to direct Nebraska directly in depression. Agricultural bankruptcies stand – 259 deposits in the first quarter, exceeding all year round, according to In Ryan Loy, agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. He says that the financial pressures that farmers are confronted now reflect those of 2018 and 2019.
And who was president in 2018 and 2019? Exactly.
Imagine voting for economic devastation and getting exactly that.
But in the middle of this wreckage is a Remarkable opening for Dan OsbornAn independent populist whose insurgent campaign almost overthrew a republican seat in the Senate last year, even though Trump carried the state by more than 20 percentage points. Osborn has outperformed the candidate for the Democratic presidential president Kamala Harris by 13 points in the deep Nebraska of Nebraska, losing a little less than 7 points.
The OSBORN platform – support for tax relief from small businesses, unions, legalized marijuana, social security protection, strengthening public schools, border security and the guarantee of the right of repair – have relentlessly focused on economic subsistence means while avoiding divisive social problems. (Yeah, yes, the border stuff is part of the reason why Nebraska is in trouble, but you can not earn the state without it, at least not yet.)
Now he’s again—Cey against the republican senator Pete Ricketts, One of the richest people in Congress. He is the populist against the privileged, the mechanic against the monetary elite.
Breadbasket’s populism again is not a little thing. But if it can take root in Nebraska (and iowa), it could radiate outwards in future cycles. That these states are the test ground for a new populism of meadow which can build a majority in the Senate on an economic common ground.
While Trump’s policies laughed at the farms of Nebraska, the rise of Osborn offers something rare: a lighthouse of populist hope in a vacillating state under economic collapse.
