Biden Tries to Elbow Aside Trump with Rural Voters

by Liz Crampton (Politico) The campaign has vowed to pay attention to rural issues, but Biden could repeat the same mistakes as Democrats’ 2016 bid for the White House. -- ... No one expects former Vice President Joe Biden to win the rural vote outright. But his strategists and supporters are working to peel away voters by hammering on Trump’s economic agenda and haphazard response to the pandemic.

During this week's Democratic National Convention, the Biden camp hosted a “virtual symposium” to discuss issues that have affected rural people, including trade, climate change and inequality in the food system. On Tuesday, members of the DNC’s Rural Council were given the floor during daytime programming.

Darin Von Ruden, a dairy farmer and president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said that he’s been having more conversations with farmers who have become disillusioned by Trump’s promises on trade and the farm economy. And Biden is earning their attention.

“They’re starting to see that [Trump’s] not really for farmers like he has been saying,” he said.

Some polls indicate that Trump’s rural support is shrinking. According to a Fox News poll in July, 40 percent of rural voters said they supported Biden and 49 percent sided with Trump. Those are much closer margins than the 2016 exit polls, when Hillary Clinton earned 36 percent of voters compared with Trump’s 61 percent.

The Biden campaign plans on ramping up rural outreach by running ads in rural media markets and targeting local newspapers and radio stations, as well as dispatching organizers to rural areas in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“I also think people haven’t heard enough about him,” said former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. "They’re open to listening, but I don’t think Biden has closed the sale yet for a lot of these folks.”

Top rural surrogates have held virtual events to drive up enthusiasm for Biden. Over the last several weeks, Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow hosted an event focusing on rural Michigan issues, and former Agriculture Secretary under Bill Clinton Mike Espy moderated a roundtable with Black farmers.

“At this point in the campaign President Trump has created doubt by himself,” said Will McIntee, Biden’s rural outreach coordinator who moved into that role last month. McIntee previously served as Iowa political director and Missouri state director. “We really want to focus on highlighting Joe Biden’s record and agenda for rural America.”

The Trump campaign brushes off the argument that Biden has a real shot with rural voters.

Still, there’s evidence that some farmers have soured on Trump. Many corn producers in the Midwest are stinging over the Trump administration’s decision to grant biofuel exemptions to oil refineries, Von Ruden said.

The Environmental Protection Agency has punted making politically fraught decisions on ethanol until after the election, out of fear of alienating both the agriculture and oil industries. “Vice President Biden has picked up on that and should make sure we’re looking more and more at renewable fuels,” he said.

And Congress has failed to address the chronic labor shortage that agricultural regions continue to face. The House passed a sweeping bipartisan agriculture labor bill last year but that effort has stalled in the Senate.

Multiple agriculture lobbyists told POLITICO they sensed a disinterest from the White House on getting an agricultural labor bill through as Trump officials focus on implementing policies that curtailed immigration to the U.S.

Still, Democratic lawmakers and political consultants told POLITICO that Biden needs to sharpen his message and show up more in those communities so that he doesn’t repeat the same mistakes from Democrats’ last bid for the White House.

“I can speak for Michigan, we really hope we get to see lots of Joe Biden,” said Michelle Deatrick, a Michigan farmer and chairwoman of the DNC Climate Council, which is advising on climate change goals in the Democratic platform.

Tom Vilsack, who served as Agriculture secretary in the Obama administration, has been pressing the Democratic party to get serious about attracting rural voters after Clinton was stomped in rural counties. He said that there’s an opportunity in the Midwest for Biden “to speak to farmers who would traditionally not be open to a Democrat.”

“For Democrats to be successful they cannot afford to write off rural places and rural people,” he said. “They need to contest with the understanding they’re not likely to win those areas but they can squeeze the margins.” READ MORE