Paul Davis on agriculture, trade and rural Kansas

Tariffs

In September 2018, after the administration put tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods and China retaliated against U.S. crops, KSNT asked the 2nd District candidates about trade. Davis said tariffs on soybeans would affect every farmer and the wider local economy, and urged Kansans to ask the president to change course: "We need to put party politics aside, just be Kansans." At the October 18 WIBW forum he said, "Many farmers are frankly being hurt by what's happening with the tariffs."

Watkins also opposed the tariffs. "I'm a capitalist and I'm a free-trade thinker so as a general rule I don't believe in tariffs," he said at the WIBW forum, and told KSNT that the government's role was to step aside and let farmers find buyers. Libertarian Kelly Standley said negotiation should have come before tariffs.

Rural health care and development

Ballotpedia's summary of Davis's campaign site lists support for rural development tax credits and for expanding Medicaid to protect rural hospitals, and opposition to what it called federal overreach in farm regulation. The site also made a claim about the district's number of family farms that we have not been able to check. Headlines preserved in the campaign site's archived addresses refer to a district-wide rural health care tour in mid-2018, with stops in Hiawatha and southeast Kansas covered by local papers.

Farm country forums

The October 3, 2018 candidate forum in Independence was organized by county Farm Bureau associations and local chambers of commerce. Most of the time went to immigration, Social Security and the federal budget; see immigration and health care.