Democrats Take House and Senate, Overhauling Ag Leadership on Capitol Hill

Democrats swept both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, flipping the House and Senate and unseating Republican incumbents across farm states including Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Ohio — districts President Donald Trump carried by double digits only two years ago.

The Associated Press projects full Democratic control. The result lands on Capitol Hill after a year in which fuel and fertilizer prices surged following the U.S. war with Iran, and farm supply chains absorbed disruptions from Trump's trade fights with Canada and other trading partners. Data centers, rising health costs and GOP cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the country's largest anti-hunger initiative — anchored Democratic campaign messages nationwide.

"It was a huge rebuke across the country, to the White House and [Trump's] policies, there was a rebuke to Republicans who've gone along with him and enabled what's happening in Washington," Democratic Senator-elect Adam Hamilton, who defeated GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, told C-SPAN. "We're talking about a war that didn't need to happen. We're talking about the cost of fuel and fertilizer for farmers. We're talking about tariff policies that are bad for America."

Trump congratulated Democrats on Tuesday night and told Fox News he was "a little surprised" by the results, adding that he feels bad for losing Republican candidates such as South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham. On governing against a Democratic Congress, the president pointed to the veto pen.

"After a couple of months of vetoes, they'll call and say how do we get this stuff done? And we'll work together," Trump said. "I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, believe it or not."

What does this change for the farm bill?

The most immediate question for agriculture is whether divided power alters the negotiation of a farm bill. Republican and Democratic ag leaders had previously committed to a bipartisan deal that could pass Congress this year. That pledge now faces a new calculus: Democratic majorities in both chambers write the rules of floor debate, while Trump's veto forces any final agreement toward the center.

Behind the policy fight sits a contest for personnel. Chairmanships of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees — and other panels touching farming and rural America — are suddenly open, and the election results reshaped the candidate pool on both sides.

Iowa: a clean Democratic sweep

Iowa delivered the sharpest rejection of the GOP. Democrats toppled House incumbents Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks and won open U.S. House and Senate seats. State Auditor Rob Sand won the governor's race, defeating Republican Zach Lahn, a candidate backed by the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Two of the losses landed directly on the House Agriculture Committee. Nunn sat on the panel, as did GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson, who lost her Senate race to Democrat Josh Turek — a four-time Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball. Turek will serve as Iowa's junior senator alongside senior GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, a farmer and Senate Ag Committee member.

The state's farm organizations split. Hinson had been endorsed by the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa Corn Growers Association. The Iowa Farmers Union, which describes itself as bipartisan, backed all five Iowa Democrats running in federal races — its first political endorsements in years.

Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman said Iran, rising input costs, trade chaos, cuts to rural health care and USDA programs, and the state's clean water crisis weigh heavily on family farmers. Beyond surging diesel, he said, inflation in seeds, pesticides, repairs and fertilizer has "all been crushing farmers' budgets."

"Health care costs have gone up so severely that it means many farmers will stop carrying health insurance altogether," Lehman said. "While Representative Hinson found money for the war, she couldn't find it to help folks find affordable, reasonable health insurance."

Who chairs the Senate Ag Committee?

Ohio's Sherrod Brown will return to Capitol Hill next year and may restore his Senate seniority, placing him in line to chair the Agriculture Committee.

"Sherrod Brown is headed back to Washington! We came into the Senate together, and I've seen his tireless dedication to Ohio and to this country. Welcome back, Sherrod!" said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the panel's top Democrat.

Klobuchar won her own race Tuesday, becoming Minnesota's first woman governor. Depending on when she vacates her Senate seat, she could appoint her own replacement until a special election is called — a decision that could affect the committee's Democratic makeup.

Elsewhere, Hamilton, a Methodist pastor, becomes Kansas's first Democratic senator in nearly a century. Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed is set to become the country's first Muslim senator after defeating Republican Mike Rogers. In the night's biggest surprise, South Carolina's Graham — the Trump-backed sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly in July — lost to Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews. Republicans also lost Senate races in Maine, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas and Minnesota.

One GOP pickup with an ag pedigree

Texas offered Republicans one notable win with direct agriculture credentials. Ag lobbyist Tom Sell won an open race for the state's 19th congressional district, covering West Texas and the southern High Plains.

Sell founded and manages Combest, Sell & Associates, a Washington ag policy firm focused on rural America. He also served under Rep. Larry Combest during Combest's tenure as House Ag Committee chairman, giving Sell a front-row seat to the 2002 farm bill and the Crop Insurance Reform Act of 2000. He will replace retiring GOP Rep. Jodey Arrington.

Sell's arrival gives House Agriculture a seasoned policy operator on the Republican side just as the committee prepares to negotiate a farm bill under new Democratic leadership, a presidential veto threat and farm margins squeezed by fuel, fertilizer and health insurance costs.