Six weeks after the election, Donald Trump has yet to name an Agriculture secretary, and the farmers who helped him win the White House are getting anxious.

The contenders they’ve seen visiting Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago aren’t from the inner circle of farmers, agriculture officials and businessmen who vouched for Trump on the campaign trail, members of his farm advisory team say. Instead the president-elect has recently auditioned a Democratic U.S senator, an advocate of Michelle Obama-style nutrition policies, and a Republican governor and former potato company executive.


In the heady days leading up to the election, Trump put together a 70-member advisory panel filled with Republican heavy hitters on agriculture policy, including farm-state governors, former USDA officials, state agriculture commissioners and agribusiness executives. But Trump’s selection process for the USDA post is starting to fracture that relationship.

Committee members have already launched a full-blown rebellion against one of Trump’s rumored top contenders for the job, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. And they’re viewing the Agriculture secretary choice as a test of whether he’s really with them.

“Rural America elected Donald Trump as well as Mike Pence, and if we don’t get involved you’re going to see the result in four years,” said Mike Brandenburg, a state lawmaker from North Dakota who serves on the committee. “That’s the bottom line.”

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Farmers, who helped Trump win by more than 15 percentage points in some Midwestern counties, expect attention from the president-elect after his entreaties on the campaign trail. In his race to win the White House, Trump spent time in rural areas, expressed support for ethanol and even called into an American Farm Bureau Federation board meeting. Trump also pledged to repeal controversial environmental regulations, something farmers have long demanded.

The next leader of the USDA will be taking over at a precarious economic time for farmers as commodity prices plummet to seven-year lows. The secretary will play a critical role in carrying out aid programs as well as promoting exports that are seen as a potential bright spot for farm income. The department also runs nutrition-assistance programs, gives billions in loans and subsidies to farmers and invests in rural development like high-speed broadband, housing and energy projects.

Members of Trump’s advisory council say they want someone in the job who understands their perspective on those issues.

“I think the bottom line is we need someone who has a proven track record and understands what needs to be done at USDA,” said Kip Tom, a corn and soybean farmer in Indiana and a member of the committee. Tom, who was once on the short list for the post himself, added that the last few candidates have caused anxiety among committee members over whether they have those qualifications.

Committee members said they’re distressed that the selection process seems to be haphazard and driven by political concerns rather than by who is most qualified or supported the president-elect all along.

In recent days, the transition team appears to have honed its focus for Agriculture secretary candidates on women to round out a cabinet that’s mostly white men. On Thursday, Sean Spicer, one of Trump’s top advisers, told reporters the president-elect would meet next week with former Texas A&M President Elsa Murano, who served as USDA’s food safety chief during President George W. Bush’s first term and is Cuban-American, to discuss the position. That came after Trump met with HeitKamp and Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs.

“They keep going through the alphabet,” said one member of Trump’s agricultural advisory committee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But none of the candidates we have seen so far are traditional ag policy wonks or longtime players who have been involved in the industry through the years.”

“Rural America stepped up,” the committee member added. “We thought we’d get one of our own. So far, I can’t think of anyone that’s come from the family.”

Committee members said they were optimistic in late November when former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, one of their ranks, was thought to be the front-runner for the job after chatting with the president-elect in late November.

Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was once seen as the front-runner for Agriculture. | AP Photo

But following an early December meeting between Trump and Heitkamp, they learned from media reports that she was thought to be at the head of the list. Heitkamp’s nomination was seen as a strategic move for Republicans: She would count as both the token Democrat and a woman, and her resignation from the Senate would likely put one more seat in GOP control.

Despite Heitkamp’s credentials as a red-state Democrat, Trump’s farm advisers were up in arms, arguing that the job should go to someone who put their support behind him during what was often an ugly campaign.

“I was blindsided, as was everyone on the Trump agricultural advisory committee who’s contacted me,” Gary Baise, a Washington-based lawyer who helped the Trump campaign build its network of rural supporters, said at the time. “She wasn’t out there supporting Trump, she wasn’t making contributions to the campaign. Why would you do this?”

Heitkamp has since faded from view — and she said in a radio interview Thursday that she was “likely” to stay in the Senate.

Now it’s unclear who tops Trump’s list. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter told reporters he is being vetted for the job, though there are few signs that he’s actually in the running. The three-term governor, who once ran a large potato company, wasn’t a supporter of Trump in the beginning, nor was he involved in the campaign’s agriculture group.

Combs, a former Texas agriculture commissioner turned state comptroller, appeared as a possible dark-horse candidate this week when she met with Pence. While Combs supported Carly Fiorina and Sen. Marco Rubio in the primaries, and is seen as having some left-leaning policies, she has the backing of the influential House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas). During her tenure as the state’s top agriculture official, Combs championed measures to remove fried foods, soda and sweets from public schools — the kinds of policies that consumer advocates and the first lady have fought for nationally — though they were reversed under current commissioner Sid Miller, another person thought to be in the running for Agriculture secretary.

Meanwhile, people thought to be potential candidates are continuing to meet with officials at Trump Tower, even though Trump is in Florida. Iowa donor and businessman Bruce Rastetter was seen there Tuesday, while Miller is reportedly meeting with officials in New York sometime between Christmas and the New Year. Both are said to want the job.

Though Agriculture secretary is typically one of the later cabinet positions to be announced, some of Trumps’ farm advisers say they’re also not happy about how long it’s taking.

Trump’s transition team, on daily briefing calls with reporters, said Trump is operating at a faster pace than President Barack Obama did eight years ago, and disagreed with the assessment that they are behind schedule in naming top officials.

"Agriculture secretary is a very big deal, something that, as with all of these appointments and nominations, it’s something the president-elect wants to make sure that he’s getting right, and the right person," Trump's transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters last week.

The last three presidents have all picked an Agriculture secretary in late December. Obama nominated Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Dec. 17, 2008, while George W. Bush tapped Ann Veneman for the job on Dec. 20. 2000. And it wasn’t until Christmas Eve, 1992 that Bill Clinton announced he had selected Mike Espy.

While Trump may not be far behind compared to his predecessors now, with Congress returning to Washington to start confirmation hearings on Jan. 3, time is quickly running out.

“We will become very impatient then,” one Midwestern farm lobbyist told POLITICO. “We are some what concerned now, but we will be very impatient then.”