Blue Races in Rural Spaces

A few things you may not know...

I ran for office in 2022 as a Democrat in a rural district.

I was on my own in most respects of my campaign for State Representative. Left to my own devices. Left to figure it out by myself. There was no funding for nominees like me. Nothing from my state party, much less the DNC. I was going to have to figure it out — I did.

I raised $272,000 for my race. Yes, you read that right.

At the end of the cycle, I had more cash on hand than the Missouri House Victory Committee. I raised it in a district that had not elected a Democrat in 30 years — a district that had never elected a woman. A district that was more often than not uncontested and given away to the Republican nominee year after year. Without a fight.

I had no way of knowing I would raise that much money. I didn’t mean to raise that much money. I had no schema for fundraising except PTA and raising funds for my cheer and dance squads. I ended up raising more than any State Rep candidate in the entire state.

Missouri doesn’t have any rural Democrats elected to office in my state. We don’t have even one Democrat elected statewide. My race stood out.

I didn’t ask for money…I told people who I was and why I was running and gave them a donation link. I ran all of my social media. I created all of my messaging. I told the truth. Thousands of dollars started pouring in.

Here is the part you won’t guess and it is humiliating: I had to cash out my small teacher retirement to live on while I ran for office. My race was a two-year process. I paid my light bill and health insurance and car payment with the money I had set aside for old age. I paid for the privilege of trying to represent my neighbors with all the money I had in the world. And I lost.

Even so, I was better off than most rural Democrats. At least I didn’t have to use my savings to pay my bills and support my campaign. If you ask most rural candidates where their campaign money is coming from, you’ll be horrified to find out it’s from their own bank account.

It was odd to watch money pouring into my campaign account as my savings account dwindled. It was surreal to be able to buy anything I needed for the campaign while knowing buying groceries was going to be tight.

When life hands you lemons, right? But other folks aren’t as eager to take up the mantle of this difficult proposition…running as a Democrat in a rural red district when there is no financial help from the party and little incentive to run. You may lose your savings. You may lose your career.

Running in a rural race with a D behind your name is a burden. We shouldn’t make it even harder by not funding these races.

Knocking doors in rural Nodaway County, Missouri.

I never intended to run for political office. I had my dream job — I was teaching American Literature. If you’ve ever been in a rural district, you know teachers are a jack-of-all-trades. I taught in one tiny school with six preps. That meant I taught six different courses. Four different grades. In one day. I couldn’t possibly master each one, but I did the very best I could.

That’s what you do in a tiny school, but I had finally managed to land in a district big enough to need a stand-alone American Lit teacher. I would only have one prep per day. I had made it and I had no desire to let that position go.

Until…

Missouri passed an abortion ban in 2019 with no exemptions for rape and incest. I was angry. And then I was furious when my State Representative, Allen Andrews, wrote an article in the local paper applauding the ban and patting himself on the back for stripping Missouri women of bodily autonomy.

I still had little inclination to run for office because I would lose my livelihood. In Missouri, you can’t run for office as a teacher, and the fact that I would run as a progressive would mean my job would be in danger anyway. It’s difficult to teach in a rural space and say phrases like “women should have the right to an abortion” or “everyone is entitled to health care.”

I live in a town of 480 people. Everyone knows my stances. Not everyone likes them.

The impetus for my run was a thousand cuts.

I was working as a veteran teacher, 16 years in the classroom, making 41k per year. I was pulling money out of my own pocket to decorate my classroom well enough to score high on my observations…yes, we were graded on how homey and welcoming our classrooms felt. I paid for pencils and notebooks and paint and highlighters and Expo markers and snacks and pads for my students.

I saw that Missouri roads in my area had degraded to near gravel. I knew over a dozen rural hospitals closed because our lawmakers refused federal funds to expand Medicaid. I knew that guns were killing our children and surpassed car accidents to be the leading killer of kids. I knew that every single one of my representatives from the State Rep to State Senator to Governor were all Republicans and none of them gave a damn about any of my neighbors.

And when 2020 rolled around, I went to my local community center to vote for Joe Biden and I realized that I couldn’t vote for down-ballot Democrats if I wanted to. There was not one on my ballot.

It was enough. I had had enough.

When I called the Missouri Democrats to let them know I planned to run, they told me I should start smaller than State Representative — I declined, knowing that I should actually start bigger as my district was not likely to come anywhere near flipping. My popularity statewide was likely better than my popularity in a very red district. I was right.

A party official told me he was glad I was running, but there was no way I could win. Well, I don’t step up to do anything to lose. I asked if there was any way someone like me could flip a ruby red seat. He said I could flip a seat if I raised 200K and had 100 volunteers. An impossible feat. A crazy challenge.

Challenge accepted.

We all know that I raised way more and had hundreds of volunteers. In the end, it didn’t matter. My district is at least a decade from flipping. I moved the needle a few points and I managed to bring attention to rural Missouri races and it was worth it to give folks a choice.

We should be doing the work even if a district is a decade from flipping. In the grand scheme of things, what’s ten years? Time is going to march on whether we are doing the work or not. Where would my district be today if we had started a decade ago?

Like a tree…the best time to plant a seed is now.

My hope is that the party, both at the national and state level, realizes what is at stake for those of us who can’t sit back anymore and decide to run in rural districts. Many of us use our own money and many of us can’t go back to business as usual after a race.

Do they realize the work a Democrat running in a race that is usually uncontested is doing? They are knocking doors and collecting data that is invaluable. They are making calls and collecting even more data that no one else can do. They are meeting folks at forums and parades and debates and bringing a Democratic message that some rural folks haven’t heard in decades.

Rural Democrats move the needle which helps every race above them.

I am not trying to shame the Democratic Party. I am exposing a fault, a weakness we should spend some time thinking about. We’d do ourselves a favor to remember Howard Dean and the 50 State Strategy.

Rather than focusing just on swing states, Dean proposed what has come to be known as the 50-State Strategy, the goal of which was for the Democratic Party to be committed to winning elections at every level in every region of the country, with Democrats organized in every single voting precinct.

Rural Democrats are sticking out their necks for the rest of us. It’s only appropriate that we have their back — that we show up for them with funding and advice and volunteers and solidarity.

The way we claw our way back to democracy runs straight through rural areas and red states. We take back our country race by race and state by state. We do that by standing behind the folks doing the work in rural spaces.

It’s a long game, though I hate that term because it’s not a game at all to those of us who have everything to lose.

We go forward by not going back…by standing together and helping those doing the work. Even in the rural spaces. Especially in the rural spaces.

~Jess