Priority 04 · Pillar two
Tariffs, fertilizer, soybeans, right-to-repair.
Most of this district is rural. A campaign that only shows up in Memphis isn’t going to mean much here. Fertilizer costs more. Soybean buyers are harder to count on. A farmer can’t even fix his own tractor. Here’s the honest version of what one new member of Congress can do about it.
Stage 01 · The standard Democratic pitch
“We support working farmers.”
Trade deals that don’t leave farmers holding the bag. The right to fix your own equipment. A fairer crop insurance program - the safety net that pays out when a harvest fails. Real internet service out in the country. Federal money for small towns.
Here’s the thing about that pitch: it’s a good one. The problem isn’t the promise. It’s that hardly any candidate bothers to come out to rural Tennessee and make it - and the ones who do haven’t followed through.
Stage 02 · What actually happened
Most Democrats stopped campaigning in rural Tennessee a long time ago.
The tariffs - taxes on goods coming into the country - have pushed up the price of fertilizer and made it harder to sell soybeans overseas. For years, a farmer in Henry or Weakley County couldn’t fix his own tractor without paying John Deere’s dealer for permission. That’s starting to crack - in 2026 Deere settled a farmers’ lawsuit and agreed to open up its repair tools1 - but it took a lawsuit to get there, and a separate federal case against Deere is still going. Crop insurance, the program that’s supposed to protect a farm when a harvest fails, keeps getting reform blocked by the biggest operations. And rural internet is still spotty after billions spent, because the programs were built around what’s easy for providers.
On top of all that, the Democratic Party mostly walked away from these small towns a generation ago - county after county here hasn’t seen a serious Democratic candidate in years.
Stage 03 · Why it hasn’t been delivered
Trade deals get written by people who’ve never farmed. And the equipment companies fight dirty.
John Deere and the other equipment makers spend big money in Washington and the state capitals. They’ve killed right-to-repair bills over and over, especially at the state level - the dealer repair is too profitable to give up. It took years of lawsuits, not legislation, to force even the recent crack in Deere’s grip.
Trade policy gets written mostly by people who’ve never set foot in a fertilizer barn. And crop insurance money flows to the biggest operations - which is also where the loudest lobbying comes from - so family farms get a program built for giant operations instead of for them. Rural internet went the same way: the rules let big providers take the easy, profitable areas and skip the hard ones.
Stage 04 · What I can actually do in two years
Right-to-repair is winnable. And federal money can reach these counties.
- Lock right-to-repair into law. Farmers just forced John Deere to open its repair tools by suing - but a court settlement isn’t a law, and it doesn’t cover every manufacturer. Right-to-repair has support from both parties and the Farm Bureau is increasingly behind it. I’d be the new member with rural credibility to carry it from the Democratic side and make it permanent.
- Steer federal money to rural internet, water systems, and childcare. A member of Congress can direct federal funds to specific local projects - an earmark. That’s real money for the rural infrastructure that’s been put off for decades. Childcare especially: it’s a jobs problem in rural Tennessee that almost nobody in Washington takes seriously.
- Push to fix crop insurance so it works for family farms. Right now the program tilts toward the biggest operations. The job is to reshape it so it actually protects family farms - and to lean on the USDA, the federal farm agency, to enforce the rules already on the books. That’s pressure on the agency as much as new law.
- Put rural farmers in the room on trade. Tennessee soybean farmers are not a side note in US trade policy. A member of Congress willing to say that out loud - even against their own party when it’s warranted - changes the conversation. Vote against bad deals. Push for protections. Make the hit on Tennessee farmers part of every trade fight, not an afterthought.
- Actually show up. Three days a week, every week. Three days a week of the campaign in the rural counties - and three days a week of the office, if I win. The Memphis-only routine is exactly why rural Tennessee has written Democrats off. Showing up isn’t a courtesy. It changes which problems the office actually works on.
Stage 05 · Why Pillar 1 comes first
You can’t fix farm policy in a Congress the lobbyists own.
What I can’t do alone is rewrite the whole system that produces bad trade deals and blocks crop insurance reform - or force the farm agency to defend family farms instead of the giants. That needs a Congress built differently than the one we’ve got.
This is where Pillar 1 comes in - the six fights to fix how Washington itself works. Win those and rural policy stops being something Democrats only promise. Start by fixing the lobbying and the money in politics - and by building a bench of rural candidates who can win county by county.
What I can deliver, I will. What I can’t, I won’t lie about.
Leading the right-to-repair fight from the Democratic side. Federal money for rural internet, water, and childcare. Trade votes that don’t treat Tennessee farmers as something to throw away. And three days a week, every week, out in the rural counties.