Politics

In Minnesota’s most conservative county, Trump voters remain resolute 100 days into term

Morrison County voters say Trump’s economic policies are a risk worth taking.

By Reid Forgrave, photos by Leila Navidi

The Minnesota Star Tribune

April 26, 2025 at 6:00am

BOWLUS, MINN. – Reis Lumber, next to this town’s shuttered grain elevator, had closed up shop. The family that ran it for 65 years was retiring. All day, Isaac Schultz greeted people as they picked up coffee, a muffin and their auction purchases: Lumber, shingles, electrical supplies. He guessed 1 in 6 customers wore a “Make America Great Again” hat.

Schultz, an auctioneer and Republican state representative from rural Morrison County, has seen reactions to the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term run the gamut. He’s heard existential dread on the left on everything from tariffs to the rise of authoritarianism, fears that Schultz calls hyperbolic. He’s heard joy from the right as Trump has pursued hard-line policies on immigration, DEI and federal government cuts.

He’s heard both sides fret about retirement savings as the stock market has tanked in reaction to Trump’s tariffs. He’s seen headlines like the recent one in the Wall Street Journal: “Dow Heads For Worst April Since 1932.”

This agricultural county, home to Camp Ripley, dairy farms and acres of corn and beans, saw a higher proportion of Trump voters than any Minnesota county in 2024. As this red-blooded county has digested the global reordering of the past 100 days, Schultz has sensed a reaction uncommon in American politics: A focus on long-term success despite short-term pain.

“He’s the first person in decades — for the vast majority of these folks’ lives — that feels like he’s actually getting to the root of the problem and addressing these global trade issues,” Schultz said. “It’s more important to win this battle on trade for the future of family farming than for us to benefit in the short term.”

Isaac Schultz, an auctioneer and Republican state representative from rural Morrison County, and his father, Mike, help a customer while facilitating a liquidation auction at Reis' Lumber & Construction in Bowlus, Minn.

From 1960 until 1980, Democrats won Morrison County in six presidential election cycles in a row. After two decades as a swing county, Morrison County has gone Republican in every presidential election since 2000. Republican margins have increased each cycle, with Trump winning 77% in 2024.

Bowlus, a town of 300 just west of the Mississippi River near Little Falls, is an especially red enclave: 85% of voters chose Trump this time around.

Its main strip used to have a variety of businesses, from a blacksmith shop to a pickle factory and Western Tack & Saddlery. But farm consolidation changed agricultural towns across America. Globalization hasn’t been great for Bowlus.

Trump’s agenda, Schultz said, resonates with the everyman here. Local people aren’t wealthy: Morrison County ranks in the bottom fifth in the state for median household income. It’s virtually all white — 97%, according to U.S. census numbers — and more than 1 in 5 residents over age 65, slightly higher than the state average. School enrollment has declined.

Trump’s policies are seen as helping Main Street, family farms and the once-thriving manufacturing base. Those changes matter way more than the stock market, Schultz said.

“Our heyday was when you had a different family farm on every corner,” Schultz said. “Trump is the first president in at least four decades who is addressing these trade deficits in a meaningful way and saying, ‘This is the purpose of my administration.’”

Donna Waldvogel, center, a self-described “lunch lady” at the local high school, plays bingo at the Falls Ballroom in Little Falls, Minn.

A more restrained Trump?

From Little Falls, population 9,000 and the hometown of aviator Charles Lindbergh, to rural outposts like Upsala and Pierz and the townships between, conservative voters in Morrison County have been largely pleased with Trump’s first 100 days.

Every Trump voter the Minnesota Star Tribune spoke with approved of Trump saying the federal government recognizes only two genders. Most applauded the deportations, saying immigration must be done legally, though some were concerned about due process.

Plenty see Trump 2.0 as more restrained than Trump 1.0, though they wish he’d spout off less. And many see the Elon Musk-led government cuts as long overdue. “You can’t spend trillions of dollars that you don’t have,” said Dennis Reis, 66, as his lumberyard closed for good. “We weren’t brought up that way.”

The topic that brings the most jitters is the economy. Republican voters here know the tariffs are Trump taking a big swing — Trump announced a 90-day pause on his tariffs this month after global markets took a beating — and they know a big swing can turn into a big miss. They see it as a risk worth taking.

“If we try to fix it little by little, it never changes,” said Lucas Boyd, a truck driver and school board member from nearby Royalton. “You pull off the Band-Aid, it’s going to bleed. And eventually it’s going to heal.”

This mentality can be found even among conservatives directly feeling pain from Trump’s policies.

A chilly breeze makes the clays dip and dart during trap-shooting practice near Little Falls, Minn.

On a recent evening, Dan Schilling watched his 14-year-old daughter’s trap-shooting practice outside Little Falls. A chilly breeze made the clays dip and dart as his daughter blasted her 20-gauge. Schilling served 20 years in the Minnesota National Guard and now works as a civilian employee at Camp Ripley. His blood runs MAGA red. “I’ve been called a conspiracy theorist 10 days from Sunday,” he said. He believes Jan. 6 was the work of antifa, not of Trump supporters, a conspiracy theory Trump himself has backed away from, instead calling the Capitol rioters great patriots and granting them presidential pardons. Schilling also lumps the Republican and Democratic parties together into the “uniparty,” seeing corruption in both.

Every Monday, Schilling, 46, must detail his workweek in an email to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. He planned to build a new house this year but is postponing indefinitely because of uncertainty in his government job.

But Schilling supports Trump 100% — even with the Trump-induced economic worry.

“It may be negative in the now, but everything he is doing is positive in the long haul,” he said, sipping Busch Light at the Little Falls VFW after trap-shooting. “The man is an outsider. He’s me, just at a lot bigger level. He’s everybody else like me.”

President Donald Trump "is an outsider," says Dan Schilling. "He’s me, just at a lot bigger level. He’s everybody else like me.”

Painful policies

Beyond Morrison, other parts of rural Minnesota are feeling the impact of Trump’s economic policies, and not everyone is so confident they will work.

In southwestern Minnesota’s Lyon County, where 65% of voters chose Trump, farmer Dennis Fultz, 77, said he and other farmers are tightening their belts.

Few are buying new tractors, and the church collection plate is getting lighter, said Fultz, noting many were already strained by last year’s flooding that was followed by a drought.

“The markets that we are losing now because of our tariffs this year, we will struggle to gain them back over the long haul,” said Fultz, a lifelong Republican who voted for Kamala Harris last November after being spooked by Trump’s dictatorial talk and his stance on trade. “We’re all sitting here holding our breath hoping that nothing really bad comes out from this turmoil.”

Gregg Roy of Grand Rapids works as a heavy equipment operator for Cleveland-Cliffs in the Iron Range. While hundreds of the company’s steelworkers at Hibbing Taconite Co. in Hibbing and the Minorca Mine in Virginia have been laid off, he is still working.

Layoffs were a long time coming at the Hibbing mine, which has been overproducing for a while, he said. “A lot of people are saying that tariffs are causing [idled mine operations], but tariffs have done nothing but help us in the past,” said Roy, who voted for Harris.

The truest believers still put their faith in Trump.

Noel Collis, a doctor and the Morrison County GOP chair, sees the tariffs as “The Art of the Deal,” with the White House saying other countries lining up to negotiate with America on trade. A half-dozen industries have disappeared from the county since Collis moved here three decades ago. He blames globalization and believes a major disruption is needed.

“He’s gambling, but he has the house odds,” Collis said. “Without the gamble, we’re going to go further down this path, more income inequality, more alienation, more deindustrialization.”

During his lunch break, Air Force veteran Mark Nelson of Little Falls protests against the Trump administration.

Quietly DFL

Morrison County is not an easy place to publicly protest Trump. Mark Nelson, an Air Force veteran who works for the state, has stood on a Little Falls corner every lunch hour the past month. One recent afternoon, his sign read, “TRUMP LUNCH SPECIAL: White Bread, Full of Bologna, w/ Russian Dressing & a Small Pickle.” Sometimes he gets a middle finger, sometimes a thumbs up. Once, a man jumped out of his car and cussed Nelson out.

He’s politically independent but has voted for Democrats since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision removed restrictions on corporate political spending. Since then, he said, American politics “has come to my worst nightmare,” he said. He fears Republican officeholders bowing to Trump on everything, even when they disagree with him.

“He’s burning the house down and cooking steak,” Nelson said. “He’s going to go as far as he can. He’s not going to stop unless he is stopped.”

Harris voters like Bev Lundorff, a retired special education teacher whose husband was a Vietnam vet, disapprove of federal government cuts: “He’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It’s not a thoughtful process. I don’t trust Trump.”

Morrison County DFL members meet at the Little Falls Library.

At a recent Morrison County DFL meeting, a dozen people, mostly retirees, gathered in the Little Falls library and talked about engaging voters. They talked about the impressive turnout at this month’s “Hands Off” protests, about Democrats decreasing Republican margins in rural areas, and about showing up at small-town parades, even if parents sometimes encourage kids to throw candy back at them.

At times, they seemed at a loss.

“I just don’t know what we can do,” said Pat Arnold, a nurse.

“It’s disregarding the courts — that’s what I fear," said Gary Gannon, a retired teacher.

But more often, you get people like Ed Rush, a field engineer for a telecom company who lives on 45 acres near Pierz. Some 40 vehicles from a nearby salvage yard dot his property, in various levels of disrepair; he loves rebuilding them. He has some wild stories to tell, like the two times he says he met reptilian aliens; he could tell, he says, from their snake-like eyes.

But he values hard work and strong faith. He was a Democrat until he started listening to Trump. When he looks at the nonstop pace of Trump’s first 100 days, he’s simply amazed, even if some of it has been rocky.

“After all the insanity of the past administration, he isn’t afraid to carry the big hammer and use it,” he said. Rush hates high taxes and is thrilled with cuts to government. He supports the tariffs, even though they will raise the price of many products.

But he’s stocking up on supplements and food. Just in case.

Ed Rush, a field engineer for a telecom company who lives on 45 acres near Pierz, has been amazed by the President Donald Trump's pace. He was a Democrat until he started listening to Trump.

Jp Lawrence and Christa Lawler of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.

about the writer

Reid Forgrave