Corporate endorsements are a liability – The pesticide liability immunity fight was a test, and voters were watching.
Read the room: Corporate endorsements are a liability
The “corporate trust collapse” intensifies across entire electorate, particularly rural voters
By
April 16, 2026
With primary election season upon us, candidates would be wise to understand how their voters are feeling about old-guard political power brokers like corporate lobbying groups.
Last year we reported polling results showing Iowans, across every demographic, overwhelmingly oppose giving chemical companies like Bayer and Monsanto immunity from lawsuits. This wasn’t environmental activists. Among Iowa Republicans, 87% oppose pesticide liability immunity legislation, 96% support punishing companies with big fines for reckless disregard of public safety, 89% don’t trust Monsanto, and 76% don’t trust Bayer.
These are not close calls. But here’s what we got wrong: we assumed this was just about pesticides. It isn’t. Iowans’ contempt for Bayer and Monsanto is simply a local expression of a national fury toward large corporations, and that fury is actively churning inside the primary electorate right now.
Last month Cygnal, one of the nation’s most accurate GOP pollsters, released a large national survey with a 2.5% margin of error. The results should alarm any candidate who expects being labeled “pro-business” will land well with voters. When asked how much they trust large corporations to act in the best interests of ordinary Americans, 78% of respondents said “not very much” or “not at all.” This includes rural voters at 83%. Let that sink in. The most reliably Republican voters in America trust large corporations less than almost any other group surveyed. When asked whether corporations tell the truth about their policy motivations, 86% say no. Among Republicans, that number is 80%. The Cygnal pollsters were blunt: “These are the voters corporations typically count as allies, and even they don’t trust corporate stated motives.”
Once upon a time, an endorsement from the major corporate lobbying groups was a prize Iowa candidates competed for. Today it is a liability. Being the corporate lobby’s candidate tells primary voters exactly whose side you’re on. Gallup shows that the majority of Americans are still pro-capitalism, including 74% of Republicans. But voters already make a distinction between being pro-capitalist, and carrying water for large corporations. Candidates would be wise to as well.
Accountable Iowa exists to protect the constitutional right of ordinary Iowans to have their day in court. The courtroom, not big government, is where individuals fight back against corporations that act with reckless disregard for public safety. When Bayer hid data about Roundup’s cancer risks, it wasn’t a regulator who exposed them, it was an individual’s lawsuit. The right of the individual to have their day in court is the free market’s most powerful self-correcting mechanism. This is a fundamental American principle, and corporations have long fought to eliminate that individual right.
The pesticide liability immunity fight was a test, and voters were watching. Those who stand with corporate lobbyists over Iowa families now have a serious data problem. In an election, that creates an opportunity for their challengers.
Voters have already decided where they stand. The only question is whether candidates will catch up before someone else does it for them.
Original article: Read the room: Corporate endorsements are a liability – The Iowa Standard