Central Valley farmers wait for Trump to turn on the spigot

In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, Yahoo News visited towns and cities across the country, speaking to voters who had supported Donald Trump in the election. As the shape of his administration emerged, we asked voters if they were happy with their choice and optimistic about the future. Here is some of what we found.

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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — People often say Republicans are like an endangered species in California, but it doesn’t feel like that here.

In this predominately blue state, where roughly two-thirds of voters backed Hillary Clinton last November, Kern County remained decidedly red, reaffirming its status as one of the last few Republican strongholds in increasingly liberal California. It’s a place that feels more like Texas than a spot sandwiched in between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Its landscape is dominated by sweeping oil fields and rich farmland that, along with neighboring counties in California’s Central Valley, provides much of the nation’s food supply.

Donald Trump defeated Clinton here by 16 points — a victory that surprised no one. But unlike other regions in the country where Trump supporters are eager for him to take office and begin implementing his campaign promises, some here admit they are still unsure about what a Trump administration might mean for them.

“Overall, I am very hopeful,” said Greg Wegis, a fourth generation farmer here in Kern County who voted for Trump. “But there are things I am a little nervous about too.”

Coming off the fifth straight year of a severe drought that has dried up rivers and drained reservoirs to historic lows, Wegis and other farmers see Trump as a potential ally in their efforts to roll back state and federal regulations they say have limited their access to what little water California does have.

The battle over California’s water is one that extends back decades, drawing battle lines between farmers and environmentalists and big cities versus small. (“Whiskey is for drinkin’, and water is for fightin’,” people here joke.) It’s a complicated policy war that many national politicians have tried to avoid, including President Obama. During a 2013 trip to the region, Obama offered up disaster relief for the drought, but vowed to steer clear of the water debate. “I want to get out alive,” he declared.

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But when Trump campaigned in nearby Fresno last summer, the New York billionaire dove into the water dispute headfirst. Calling the water problem “so insane,” Trump falsely declared there was no natural drought, but rather a lack of water primarily caused by overregulation and environmental laws. Farmers contend they are co-existing problems that have forced them to fallow millions of acres of land in recent years because they couldn’t afford to water their crops.

“It is so ridiculous,” Trump said of the issue, vowing he would “fix it.” “Believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water, so that you can have your farmers survive,” he said. “We’re going to get it done quick. Don’t even think about it. That’s an easy one.”

Wegis, whose family farms several acres of almonds, dates and fruits in Kern County, is skeptical Trump alone can help solve the issue. But he feels more hope about him than elected officials who seemed unwilling to even engage in the issue because of the dicey politics involved.

But Wegis is less confident in how Trump might handle another big issue of concern here: immigration reform. The real estate mogul made a crackdown on illegal immigrants and building a “big beautiful wall” a central theme of his unlikely bid for the presidency. But farmers here rely heavily on migrant workers, many of them undocumented, to work the fields and harvest their crops.

Many here want a program that would allow migrant farm laborers to obtain work permits — though Trump has previously dismissed calls for such a program, insisting that all illegal immigrants should go back to their native country before reapplying to work in the United States.

Wegis suggested that would be “disastrous” for the agriculture industry in California, which relies heavily on migrant labor in part because Americans simply don’t want those jobs. He suggested a system where laborers would register into a system and receive a card. If any had a criminal history, they wouldn’t work or would be sent back to their native country.

One sign of hope for people here: Last fall, during a private fundraiser in nearby Tulare County, Trump spent part of the time quizzing farmers on how a permit system might work. “I am hoping that because he is a businessman, he will be practical and see where we are coming from,” Wegis said. “We need these people.”

Around town, others have more general wish lists for the incoming president, including hopes for tax cuts and the creation of new jobs. While they like Trump’s ideas of restructuring trade deals to be more favorable the U.S., some worry that he could launch a trade war that could potentially damage the agriculture industry, which relies heavily on exporting food overseas, including almonds — one of the leading crops here.

At Mossman’s, an old diner inside a bowling alley in downtown Bakersfield, a group of veterans in their 90s, who meet once a month for breakfast, initially waved off a reporter asking about Trump because they’d established a rule during the contentious election not to talk about politics out of fear it could strain their friendships.

But one man couldn’t help himself: “I wish he’d stop popping off, and focus on the job.”