Reporting From the Ground

Over their skis

I spotted my absent Congressman at a football game recently. I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to do with myself for a few minutes.

My mom was with me in the stands, and she looked over and said, “What’s wrong with you. Your mouth is open.”

You should know that Congressman Sam Graves, representing Missouri’s 6th District, has been my Congressman since I moved to Missouri almost two decades ago. For about ten of those years, I wasn’t very active in politics at all. As I have written, I was a very busy parent and teacher and student myself, and I didn’t look up much.

Not an excuse but the truth.

For the last ten years, I have been actively trying to communicate with my Congressman to no avail. He does send canned responses to my emails and he does send out a very biased and slanted newsletter that I skim…I can’t stand to read half-truths in print.

I call one of his offices at least once a month. He has five offices. The DC office is usually the most polite, and the Hannibal office is the most combative and condescending. A staffer in the Kansas City office once argued with me, telling me I didn’t know which House District I lived in.

I live in HD1 and I know this because I ran for that office. I think I know where I live and vote and ran for a seat. I told him as much, and he hung up on me.

You know, the usual treatment from an elected Republican’s staff.

The funny thing is…the Congressman stood at the end of the football bleachers looking up for quite some time deciding where to sit. You may know of that moment…you arrive late to a sporting event and the stands are full. You search for both an empty place and a friendly face.

Sam took a very long time to decide where to sit. Nobody waved to him to have him sit by them. No one shouted, “Hey, Sam! Here’s a place.”

He just stood there forever and looked for a place to land, and I found that weird.

This Congressman should have been in very friendly territory — this was just a few minutes from his hometown. He has been in Congress for 24 years. His name has been on the ballot every election since 1992. He is homegrown, and he was struggling to find company in the stands at a football game.

Something is going on.

Do you remember the pollster Ann Selzer? She predicted Kamala Harris would win in Iowa in 2024. Harris did not win, and the New York Times printed:

A Famed Iowa Pollster’s Career Ends With a ‘Spectacular Miss and a Trump Lawsuit

Ann Selzer was off about the 2024 Iowa prediction. But it wasn’t that she was completely wrong; it was that she was ahead of the curve. Harris did not win, but Ann saw something that others did not see, and she was punished for being ahead of the game.

Iowa flipped a red State Senate seat blue just a few weeks ago. Catelin Drey flipped Iowa State Senate District 1, beating Christopher Prosch in a special election to fill the seat of the late senator Rocky De Witt.

Ann Selzer likely saw that groundswell before the election.

I am convinced that Ann saw into the future. I know this because I am often in Iowa. I am on the ground and see what she saw. I do not own a polling company, and I’m not even proficient in reading polling data, but I do talk to people. I listen to them. I take note of what I hear.

I often report what I hear to you, reader, so you understand what people in the heartland say matters to them.

I tell you these things because I think the consultant class misses issues important to regular people. I think the Ann Selzers of the world have gut premonitions, while strategists give folks $100 and then lock them in rooms with screens persuading them to watch ads and messaging material to find the “right” message.

They could just talk to voters — wild idea, I know.

Harvest of Hope Community Dinner. Weston, Missouri. 9/26/25.

I spoke at a sold-out dinner in Platte County, MO this weekend. It was set in a barn in a park in Weston. I knew as soon as I arrived and saw the tables and the food, this was going to be a good event.

I wasn’t wrong.

I arrived a little early, so I walked around and invited myself into groups of people talking, and I listened. As I walked away from a group of six or seven women at a table, one of the women followed me to my table at the front.

She seemed a little nervous, and she told me she had voted for Trump — I don’t know how many times. She told me she had followed me on Facebook until a recent post in which I called Trump voters “stupid.”

She was upset with me, and I could feel it in her demeanor.

I told her I have never called Trump voters stupid on Facebook. I would never. Not because I am above name-calling (just ask my elected Republican Representatives) but because I still hold out hope that we can flip a few here and there. Not likely, but possible.

The woman said she would find the post to show me…sure enough, she did.

In the post, I did not call Trump voters stupid, but I did say that if, “this is not what you voted for,” you can prove it by standing up against the regime. She apologized and said she must have just read the first few lines and unfollowed me.

After the apology, which I did not need, she talked about her voting pattern. She, like me, comes from a conservative and religious family. She never second-guessed who she should vote for. Republicans all the way down the ballot.

I asked her why she no longer supports Trump. She said she works for a non-profit that was defunded by the regime.

She started consuming different news to find out why her non-profit was defunded. And then the tariffs hit. And ICE happened. And then she felt like shit for her vote.

There are a few things you can take away from my conversation with a former Trump voter: 1) The policies had to impact her personally to change her mind, 2) She isn’t shying away from what she did, 3) She is out doing the work to talk to people she knows who are still drinking the Trump Kool-Aid.

All of those things are possible at once, and I am glad to welcome her to the fold, no matter how late she is. Yes, I know that sounds like privilege, but I also know she can reach people who would never listen to me. I know she has a circle of friends and family who are observing her actions, and they love her enough to pay attention. She has a shot to move folks over.

She has work to do, but she is on the path.

Something is going on.

From the slight shunning of my Congressman, to the State Senate seat in Iowa, to the former Trump voter seeking me out, I feel like we can recognize that things in the heartland aren’t what they were. Things are changing.

Ann Selzer was somewhat correct in her prediction — she was just early. I am also right when I point out that Republicans representing the oligarchy have overplayed their cards. They are over their skis. They have jumped the shark.

Voters have noticed.

Things are changing.

~Jess