Democrats’ rural troubles could be key to GOP mid-term gains
Well into the 1990s, rural America was a political battleground. Democrat Bill Clinton won a plurality of the rural vote in that decade. But that is no longer the case, and rural voters are trending so heavily Republican this year that they could play a key role in giving the GOP control of Congress.
Some Democrats are concerned that the party is putting so much focus on issues such as abortion that it’s ignoring the top concerns of rural voters, the biggest of which is inflation, according to a recent poll.
Three-quarters of battleground rural voters say the economy isn’t working for them and half don’t expect their finances to improve in the next year, according to the survey sponsored by the journal Daily Yonder. Forty-five percent of those surveyed cited inflation as their biggest concern, and no issue came close.
“I think they’re going to be voting pretty much Republican,” said poll director Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners. The Democratic political strategist said her party has failed to engage in a conversation with those in rural America about their values.
Lake said party leaders in Washington are “very, very out of touch with rural America” and added, “I think they’re out of touch honestly with all of America.”
Celinda Lake, Lake Research Partners
The states polled include Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are all pivotal to Republican hopes of taking control of the Senate in next week’s elections. Republicans are trying to retain control of seats in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and could potentially flip Democratic seats in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.
Democrats can retain effective control of the Senate if they retain at least 50 seats, allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to continue breaking ties.
Lake said rural voters will be especially important in Senate and gubernatorial races since those involve an entire state and rural voters could mean the margin of difference.
The rural vote is less crucial in many House races, according to Lake. But Democrats are defending several districts in the Midwest and elsewhere with significant rural populations. At least 11 Democratic seats on the House Agriculture Committee are in play this year.
Some 59% of respondents said they intend to vote for Republicans in congressional races, while 32% said they intend to vote for Democratic candidates. That’s roughly the margin by which former President Donald Trump won the rural battleground states in 2020.
Republicans are generally favored to win the 218 seats needed to control the House, but Democrats hope to at least keep the margin close.
A political analysis site that is generally more favorable to Republicans, RealClear Politics, rates 228 House seats as safe for Republicans or leaning or likely to go to the GOP. Thirty-three more races are considered toss-ups.
Other rating services don’t put Republicans in quite as strong a position.
The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections each rate 212 seats as safe, likely or leaning Republican. Cook rates 35 more races as toss-ups, while Inside Elections considers 18 races to be toss-ups.
The website FiveThirtyEight rates 219 seats as safe, likely or leaning Republican and another 11 races as toss-ups. Sabato’s Crystal Ball has 218 seats safe, likely or leaning Republican, with another 22 races as toss-ups.
Amy Walter, editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, believes Republicans are likely to win control of the House by at least 20 seats, and that the margin of victory in rural areas will be important in some swing districts that also include urban and suburban voters.
Such districts, many held by House Ag Democrats, include Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s 7th District in Virginia, which includes part of the Washington suburbs; Rep. Cindy Axne’s 3rd District in Iowa, which includes metropolitan Des Moines; and Angie Craig’s 2nd District seat in Minnesota, which includes some of the Twin Cities suburbs.
Walter noted that in the 2021 governor’s race in Virginia, “not only did the rural areas turn out, but they turned out and voted by an even larger margin” than they did in the 2020 presidential election.
A crucial question for House Democrats in districts like that, according to Walter, is how much rural support can they continue to lose and still offset those rural margins with urban and suburban votes.
Are Democrats ignoring rural voters’ concerns?
Jeff Bloodworth, co-director of the School of Public Service & Global Affairs and a professor of history at Gannon University located in Erie, Pennsylvania, said Democrats don’t even try to appeal to rural voters, and Republicans take rural voters for granted.
“Rural America holds an extraordinary amount of political power [in] the Senate and in the House. It should be a battleground,” Bloodworth said. “Rural voters are marginalized, and they’re ignored,” which he also attributed to why many of those voters offered strong support for Trump.
Patty Judge, former Iowa lieutenant governor and founder of Focus on Rural America, shared that ahead of the 2020 and 2018 elections, there was a lot of talk about rural votes. But that isn’t the case in this election. “In my opinion, that’s not a good thing,” Judge said.
“We’ve got Democrats talking about women’s rights, about climate, and about equal opportunity for all. And those are all incredibly important issues. Then we’ve got Republicans talking about high gas prices, about economic opportunity, high taxes and inflation. And those are all incredibly important. But I’m missing how those things converge,” Judge said.
Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat who founded the One Country Project to help her party better connect with rural voters, said the “conversations in rural America continue to focus on the economy and the resurrection of the job market.”
Bloodworth, who is a registered Democrat but considers himself a moderate, doesn’t think Democrats seriously try to win rural areas, but he thinks that could change after this election.
“Rural voters are sending a message. They’re tilting the playing field towards the GOP,” he said. “In a way they’re demonstrating their power, and maybe there’ll be some sort of reaction from the Left.”
In Ohio, Democratic candidate does try to appeal to rural voters
One Democratic candidate who is making a serious effort to win in rural areas may be Rep. Tim Ryan, who is running against Republican J.D. Vance for the Senate seat now held by retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman. Vance is backed by former President Donald Trump.
Chris Gibbs, a farmer who is president of Rural Voices USA, became an independent in 2018 after 20 years of Republican Party leadership at the local level. But he didn’t become a registered Democrat, he said, until he saw Ryan’s focus on rural voters.
Ryan went to Gibb’s farm near Maplewood, Ohio, and visited with nearly 35 farmers Gibbs gathered together that day. Nearly 80% of those producers would not consider themselves Democrats, and Ryan sat down in a lawn chair for 75 minutes to listen to them firsthand.
He opened up with just five minutes of talking about himself. “He never said the word ‘J.D. Vance.’ Never said the word ‘Republican.’ Never said the word ‘Democrat,’” Gibbs said. Instead, Ryan explained to those in attendance that he’s not from an agricultural district and asked for their insight.
“The group truly sensed that he was interested in them and wanted to know about their concerns,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs said most telling of that day was when Ryan’s wife asked for a photo with all those in attendance — comprised of many traditional Republicans — and none chose to miss out on the chance to get pictured with him.
Tim Ryan poses with Ohio farmers following a conversation about ag issues.
“What that told me was that people were looking for someone genuine. And not spoken to or told what he was going to do when he got to Congress and not told everything that was wrong with America,” Gibbs said.
Still, the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation ended up giving its endorsement to Vance. Bill Patterson, the group’s president, shared that after interviewing and hearing from both candidates, the farmer leaders felt that Vance would best represent Ohio agriculture.
“As you think about regulations we face and think about the struggles as far as pricing and inputs, he’s certainly more aligned with where we’re at,” Patterson said.
Patterson said the more he heard from Vance, the more he liked him. “He was a little late to the race. A lot of people didn’t know him or know what he was about and what he was going to do.”
Patterson said he’s hearing not a lot is being done to get turnout from the urban vote. “This makes it that much more important rural Ohio gets out there and supports those individuals who understand our…
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