Instead of Leaving Rural America, Democrats Should Double Down on Running Candidates in Rural Races

Rural progressives are here and begging for the infrastructure and funds to fight back against extremism

“It’s the statehouses, stupid.”

That quote is by David Pepper and I think about it often. I live in Missouri with a GOP supermajority and 22 years of of the worst sort of governance.

Want to see extremism? There are currently three bills being sent to the Governor’s office for signing: One to defund public schools, another to defund Planned Parenthood, and the last to make sure Missourians can’t sue the Bayer corporation for their Round-Up caused cancer. True story.

So, where are the Democrats and voices of dissent? They are nearly silenced with a superminority and a Democratic Party that has been almost non-existent in my district for at least a decade. The proof is in the legislative pudding.

The Democratic Party lost the plot when they pulled out of rural America leaving huge swaths of the country to be taken over by the GOP. I should know…I am a rural person, a former teacher, and a former Democratic Nominee for State House. I did not receive funding from the Democratic Party to run my race — not a penny, and this is very common in rural races. We have been left to our own devices and many have just decided to acquiesce to Republican rule rather than fight on our own.

I refuse to give up.

What’s the point of running in a district you know will not flip for a few cycles? What’s the point of funding a nominee who will likely lose?

Because local candidates do the hard work. They talk to their neighbors and district. They put a Democratic message out in their community. They let voters in their area know that Democrats aren’t gun-grabbing communists, but they do want to fund public schools, pave roads, keep the local rural hospital open, and create jobs for their kids so they don’t abandon the farm or the small town.

You want a rural message that resonates? Remind folks that their kids will not be returning home because of policies that decimated the economy and schools in their rural communities. Their grandchildren will be raised far from them.

Progressives have a message that rural folks like if we can just keep the message consistent by having nominees on every ballot every single year. If you have a nominee, you have someone talking to their neighbors. Without a nominee, there is no one knocking doors, or making calls, or attending forums, or spreading the message about progressive polices.

We know the GOP has outsized governance because they control rural spaces. States like Wyoming have the same number of Senators as does California. Why not then spend money in Wyoming? Democrats should harness this time in our country — take back rural America and bring back sanity.

When Democrats run in rural State Legislative races, Dems can win the state, even if the local rural nominee loses their race. And that’s part of the point from a fundraising point of view. If a state-wide nominee spends part of their money in rural organizing, that will pay dividends. You may not win the rural district as a whole, but did you drive out a few thousand more folks to vote for you? Can you imagine the difference that makes in a state-wide race?

Have you heard of the Sister District Action Network? They had a Zoom with some information that absolutely blew my mind. It concerned “ballot roll-off.” The information below is from their research:

What Is Roll-Off?

● When a voter ticks the top, but not bottom, of their ballot

How Widespread is Roll-Off?

● State legislative candidates from both major parties often experience ballot roll-off

● But down-ballot Democrats experience roll-off more frequently and severely than

Republicans

● 2012-2020: across 8 battleground states, contested state legislative Democrats

experienced roll-off 80% of the time, compared to only 37% for Republicans.*

Rural Democratic voters are almost certainly voting at the top of the ticket, and this November, that means a Presidential nominee, maybe a Senate position, and possibly a Governor, but many are stopping there. The research from Sister District indicates that Democratic and women voters are more likely to roll-off than Republicans and men. They don’t feel confident that they know enough about the down-ballot nominees to keep voting.

The research concludes that decreasing roll-off by 1-2% would result in massive state legislative gains. It also states that 60% of roll-off voters rank Federal elections as the most important. That stat made me gasp.

You and I know that statehouses are where awful and hateful laws originate. We know that GOP-dominated states are doing the bidding of the wealthy and of corporations, but if Democrats aren’t even voting for the state legislative races, we are going to keep losing our states to the extremists. This extremism then bleeds out into the country.

The remedy? Back to the beginning…run candidates everywhere, including rural races. They will engage their community, educate their voters, and bring back voters to down-ballot races. To do this, rural nominees will need funding and infrastructure. To do this, we will need to support nominees who will not likely win in one cycle.

We get our country back when we re-engage with rural communities.

To the Democratic Party: it’s not too late to come back to the rural places that have been abandoned for years. In fact, we’ll celebrate your return like the prodigal son.

Just come back.

~Jess

Post-script: I am the Executive Director of Blue Missouri which consistently messages about down-ballot races and raises money for down-ballot Democratic nominees. We know we can change the state by focusing on funding rural nominees for the statehouse. Go here for more information.