Treks

Rural Voters

I left early for my speaking engagement in Overland Park, Kansas, last week because I wanted to drop by the REI store in the city. I love camping, and I have never had an opportunity to visit an REI store, but I have perused their online store several times.

I ended up walking out with a $5 reusable REI bag because most of the gear is out of my price range, but I did enjoy looking at sleeping bags and wool socks and thinking about the trips to the Minnesota North Shore I am planning for the summer.

I’m going to need a new pair of hiking boots soon. I accidentally set mine on fire while trying to dry them last year. I put the boots on a grate near the fire, and walked away for a minute. I came back to my shoelaces going up in smoke, and the rubber on the toe so hot that it slid into the leather.

I had to wear my sandals the rest of the trip — rocks digging into my feet the entire time I hiked Devil’s Kettle. A woman who passed me twice on the trail told me I should get a pair of boots…

Driving to Overland Park is quite another sort of trek for me. I have an easier time navigating a trail in sandals than 5 lanes of traffic.

I was asked to speak to a group of folks in the city who are concerned with voting rights and school vouchers and the authoritarian slip we see each day. The group meets once a month and is growing.

Like almost every group I meet with, it was started by a group of women who saw a need and filled it. Almost every time I am asked to speak, I hear the same story. It’s always a small group of women around a dining room table who decide to do something. Women deciding to act. Women organizing for change.

"You show me the women and I'll turn them into organizers.” ~Kate Mullany

Chicken N Pickle restaurant. Overland Park, Kansas. 2/17/26.

The event space ended up packed…they had to keep bringing in chairs for people, and some ended up standing the entire time.

One of the organizers said there were about 250 people there.

I spoke for about 10 minutes before I accidentally touched the wrong place on my phone, and I lost my notes. I don’t panic when that happens anymore because I have my talks down to memory at this point. There is so much happening at any moment of any random day that it’s not hard to remember a horror to speak about. I could go on for hours, but I always look at the crowd to see when they’ve had enough.

I was a teacher long enough to know to look for boredom or fatigue in the audience, and I shut up before either happens.

There was a Q&A session after my talk, and a man asked about rural voters…my area of expertise.

He talked about rural people voting for Trump, and then he said something I have heard on many occasions, but it might take your breath away because it is so frank and direct: “Rural people will have to feel the pain before they vote differently.”

I do not think the statement was malicious. I think it is an honest assessment from someone who hasn’t spent much time around rural people.

Here is something I can assure you: Rural people feel the pain.

If you want to see decay, visit almost any rural town in the heartland. If you want to see pain, talk to someone who can’t access healthcare without a two-hour drive. If you want to see suffering, ask about the local school and the voucher schemes that are draining resources from our kids. If you want to see hunger, go to the local church on a Wednesday when the food bank is in town.

We feel the pain and have for decades. It’s just that some rural folks misplace their anger. Some folks are prepped to be angry at the wrong people. Some folks are lashing out in pain, and the punches are landing haphazardly.

You also have to remember that politics is tied to identity and religion in rural spaces. Rural spaces are more likely to be religious, and the Trump cult was welded to several Evangelical churches a decade ago.

Many rural spaces are also news deserts. There is a lack of local journalism, which leads to corruption. If there is no one to report on the local City Council meeting or the School Board meeting or the Board of Aldermen meeting, things can go south quickly. Tax money can be misused or bribes can be passed under the table and if only one party rules local politics, it can be swept under the rug.

Local journalism can also draw a line from failed policies to the politicians who endorse them. Without reporting, it’s hard to know who is responsible for the pain.

In districts like mine, there aren’t local Democrats to vote for. I haven’t been able to vote for a county office in nearly a decade. There is no opposition to any Republican running for Sheriff or Assessor or Recorder or Coroner or Prosecutor or Collector or County Clerk.

My State Representative has been unopposed since I ran against him in 2022. He is currently running unopposed for the second straight cycle.

We can’t win if we don’t run, and I can’t vote in my self-interest and the interest of my community if I can only choose from Republicans.

And here is something: Rural people make up only 15% to 20% of the US population. We literally could not elect a President even if every single one of us voted for the same person — and I can assure you that we didn’t.

As Democrats, we have to stop pointing to rural Americans as the root of our problems. It is alienating, and it is mathematically wrong. Six million Californians voted for Trump in 2024. That’s the entire population of Missouri.

The good news is that rural America is ripe for the picking. Rural America is the lowest-hanging fruit for shifting voters from red to blue.

The Democrats have retreated from areas like mine, but so have the Republicans. No one is out here. That’s a huge opportunity.

We don’t have to change Trump voters. We have to engage apathetic voters.

I live in rural America. I am from rural America. I have to navigate politics like I navigate a steep, rocky trail, but it can be done.

Make the trek back to rural spaces.

Listen to the stories and show rural people the plan for a better way forward. You won’t win them all, but you’ll start something that will grow with each cycle.

Come back.

~Jess