Democrats Must Win in Rural America — and Here’s How

by Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post) ... Heitkamp (former senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.)) told me in a phone interview that there was “a steady but persistent erosion” of support for Democratic candidates in the great swath of red America. “When you look at the numbers, it’s hard to win the Senate or potentially the president without getting votes in rural America.”

She stressed that Democrats need to expand their appeal. “It will be easier to govern,” she said. Heitkamp warned that no party should have a lock in one geographic area; the result would be polarization and the party with monopoly strength taking voters for granted.

That was the genesis for Heitkamp and Donnelly’s (former Senator Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.)) “One Country Project," which, its website says, “is dedicated to reopening the dialogue with rural communities, rebuilding trust and respect, and advancing an opportunity agenda for rural Americans.” The project has three main purposes: building a data center “on rural opinion, voter makeup, demographics, turnout, long-term trends, and issue salience”; creating a network to engage rural voters; and developing policy aimed at rural America. READ MORE

Excerpt from Axios: "What we heard on the ground is that the Democratic Party no longer speaks for the entire country," Heitkamp said. "They’ve forgotten the middle of the country and forgot to even show up. Even past Democratic voters didn’t recognize the Democratic Party of 2018." READ MORE

Excerpt from Time Magazine: Heitkamp argued that rural voters feel disrespected or dismissed altogether. The fights in Washington seem distant to their worries in the heartland and are offering folks like her neighbors little help. And, based on her research on voting trends since her loss last year, she believes Democrats in 2020 are poised to have an even larger win with the popular vote while still losing in the Electoral College.

When Barack Obama first ran for President in 2008, he picked up 45% of the rural vote. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton picked up just 34%.

The rural vote accounted for 11% of the population when Obama ran. When Clinton was running, that number was 17%, according to exit polls, despite urban areas outpacing them in rates of growth.

Put plainly: If a Democrat is going to win the White House in 2020, they can’t be writing off as much as one-fifth of the voters. After all, according to the Census, almost 60 million people live in rural areas and Trump did 29 percentage points better in rural areas than in urban ones. In Pennsylvania, that urban-rural gap was 46 percentage points.

She wants to use the group to highlight how Trump’s trade war is costing farmers’ profits, how manufacturing policy is making tractors more expensive and how its policies are keeping high-speed Internet out of many small towns.

Heitkamp also argued that social issues such as LGBT rights and abortion are less significant to rural voters than thought, noting Midwestern Democrats who won Senate seats in the past such as Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson and Bob Kerrey.

“The culture has not changed that much in the last 10 or 20 years. They will vote for Democrats if Democrats are seen as representing and understanding their issues,” Heitkamp says. “This project was born not necessarily out of my interest in making sure that Democrats are competitive in rural America by making sure that rural America understands that there is an opportunity here to look at the two sides and choose a political party that can, in fact, be responsive to their concerns.” READ MORE