‘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.
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