FORT RECOVERY, Ohio — Bill Knapke, a third-generation farmer who raises hundreds of steers along with 350,000 hens and 8,000 hogs on 350 acres, said he was unbothered when he lost several thousand dollars after President Trump rattled markets last year by saying cattle ranchers needed to lower beef prices.
“We took it on the chin, but we’re fine,” Knapke told the Wall Street Journal. “We’ll give Trump plenty of time to accomplish what he needs to. He’s got a plan.”
Knapke, 54, said rising fuel and fertilizer prices have stung his operation, where he works with his wife, 26-year-old son and two employees. But he said paying more is worth it if America is respected on the global stage and the Iranian nuclear threat is neutralized.
“There’s going to be some short-term negative impacts, but long-term, the president is taking us on the right path,” he said, according to the Journal.
Trump’s approval numbers have tumbled nationally. A Wall Street Journal survey published in May found Republicans who strongly back the president dropped to 57% from 75% in January. The wartime economy, gas prices that have hovered above $4 a gallon in Darke County since the start of the Iran war, and uncertainty about the conflict have eroded support. Democrats see an opening to flip a Senate seat in Ohio.
But in the farmlands of west-central Ohio, where Trump won about 82% of the vote in Darke County in 2024, a bloc of loyalists said the president has delivered on key campaign promises — tougher border enforcement, lower reported crime and a rightward cultural shift.
Nicci Keiser, 46, a mother of four and teacher’s aide in the Versailles school district, said she strongly approves of Trump’s second term. She told the Journal that Trump has restored Christianity in American politics, a turn she said Democrats had abandoned by straying from traditional family values.
“Things just got too crazy under the Biden administration,” Keiser said.
On Trump’s divisive rhetoric, she acknowledged “he has his own flaws” but said “he’s still doing the stuff that we want him to do.”
Keiser said she draws inspiration from seeing more young people return to church. “There’s a big Christian movement coming back,” she said. “People are going back to the roots of making themselves better people.”
With gas above $4 a gallon, Keiser said she is not rattled. For her, the president’s fight for cultural conservatism outweighs economic concerns.
“We’re not looking to be millionaires,” she said. “We trust the president’s process.”
Katie DeLand, GOP chair for Darke County, said while enthusiasm for Trump has cooled since election-year highs, voters still align with him because they believe Democrats would be worse.
“The question of what if Democrats got back into power is terrifying for voters here,” DeLand told the Journal. “They wonder, ‘Would gas be $7 a gallon with Kamala Harris in office?’”
Sophia Rodriguez, chair of the Democratic Party in Mercer County, said the president’s culture-war focus serves as a distraction from rising fuel and fertilizer prices. She also said Trump’s antagonism toward immigrants has made many local Hispanics feel unsafe.
“Latinos in the community don’t want to be seen. They don’t want to be known so that they are singled out or ridiculed or called on by ICE,” Rodriguez said. “They just want to live a simple life.”
Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University in Oxford, said Trump has delivered on cultural promises to his base. “And as people have gotten more and more upset about Trump’s performance, some of these voters simply double down on him,” he told the Journal.
Grant Beasley, 22, a junior at Bluffton University, said he worries about owning a home after graduation — average listing prices in Darke County have more than doubled in the past decade, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data. But Beasley said limiting illegal immigration matters more.
“I’m a little scared because I’m seeing rising home prices,” he said. “But I’d rather have safer streets and maybe a little bit higher prices than the reciprocal.”
Declining enthusiasm could affect Republican control of the House and Senate. This week, GOP Rep. Warren Davidson, who represents Darke County, voted to limit the president’s war powers in Iran. Trump called Davidson and three other Republican lawmakers who supported the measure “bad Republicans” in a social-media post. Davidson’s office did not respond to a request for comment, the Journal reported.
Keiser said the drop in enthusiasm within the party is temporary. “As soon as the war is over, they’ll all come back on board,” she said.