The latest polling shows that Kamala is now ahead in most swing states, not just the Blue Wall states of the Midwest, but even in Arizona and tied in Georgia. And the new Marquette Law School national poll finds Kamala besting Trump among likely voted 53-47%. When third-party candidates are included, Kamala leads Trump by even more:
Kamala- 50%
Señor T- 42%
RFK, Jr- 6%
Jill Stein- 1%
Chase Oliver- 1%
However, rural states may be slow in picking up the vibe. An Emerson poll of likely Montana voters is dismal. It’s one of the most rural states in the country— something like 44% of the population living in rural areas. Even the biggest cities are more like large towns that urban centers:
Billings- 122,077
Missoula- 78,876
Great Falls- 60,414
Bozeman- 58,459
Helena- 35,204
The worst news is that Republican Tim Sheehy is leading Jon Tester by two points— 48-46%. The Trump lead over Kamala— 58% to 43%— doesn’t mean much since Montana’s 4 electoral votes have been long written off to Trump. Trump beat Biden 56.9% to 40.5%. The least rural counties mostly went blue:
Missoula Co. (Missoula)- 60.6% Biden
Silver Bow Co. (Butte)- 55.7% Biden
Gallatin Co. (Bozeman)- 52.2% Biden
But what about Walz? Will he make a difference in rural areas of the country? Maybe not in Montana… although Roosevelt and Park counties were close enough so that Walz actually could make a difference… if the campaign decided to waste his time by sending him there. Rural counties that could swing states on the other hand is where they should use Walz. These are rural counties in swing states where Biden came close:
Arizona-
Yuma- 46.0%
Navajo- 45.0%
Pinal- 40.5%
Georgia-
Burke- 48.7%
Peach- 47.2%
Early- 47.2%
Dooly- 46.5%
Twiggs- 46.0%
Fayette- 45.9%
Michigan-
Muskegon- 49.4%
Eaton- 48.7%
Isabella- 47.7%
Clinton- 45.8%
North Carolina-
Pasquotank- 49.4%
Scotland- 48.6%
Lenoir- 47.9%
Nash- 47.6%
Martin- 47.1%
Granville- 46.1
Alamance- 45.1%
Wisconsin-
Columbia- 48.4%
Vernon- 46.8%
Winnebago- 46.8%
Crawford- 45.5%
Yesterday Roger Kerson discussed the Walz factor in rural America for Barn Raiser readers. He started out with a warning: Trump won 59% of rural voters in 2016 and 65% in 2020. But he insists it’s not a lost cause. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party told him before Democrats can hope to win back rural voters they have to break what she calls “the cycle of mutual neglect. We neglect to invest in rural America. So [rural Americans] don’t hear our message, they don’t see our faces, they don’t know our platform. So they don’t vote for us— so we don’t invest in rural America.”
According to Dan Shea, a professor of government at Colby College in Maine, rural residents are looking for empathy from political leaders, and a sense of shared values. “A common assumption,” Shea says, “is that rural communities are withering away, a wasteland of alienation. We find the opposite: Rural Americans are proud of their communities. They are connected and they want to stay in the community.” Rural communities, he says, are typically more economically integrated than suburbs or cities, with well-to-do families living nearby those who are less well off, often attending the same schools and churches. As a result, although rural residents have a strong belief in hard work and self-reliance, they are also highly attuned to how well— or how badly— their community is doing as a whole.
Even prior to the collapse of rural manufacturing, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s sweeping victory in 1980, the prairie populists who could once win over the heartland electorate began to lose steam. Democratic senators like Idaho’s Frank Church, Iowa’s John Culver and South Dakota’s George McGovern lost their seats, and rural voters are now “overwhelmingly conservative.”
…Rural Democrats are also focused on the need to run candidates in as many races as possible. One goal is to erase GOP supermajorities in all-red state legislatures, which allows the party to write its most extreme policy planks into law. And in swing states, said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the pro-democracy activist group Indivisible, down ballot races can make a big difference.
“I know some of you are thinking, hey Ezra I’m in the heart of Trump country we can’t elect a dog catcher,” he said. “That might be true. You might not be able to elect a dog catcher. But you sure as hell can run a dog catcher; you sure as hell can get votes out for that dog catcher, and get votes out for the state rep, state senator, U.S. rep, city council person.”
“You can get votes out for those candidates. They might win, they might not win. But regardless they’re going to get votes out for themselves and the top of the ticket for Harris for Walz, for Democrats running statewide. We need those votes.”
“When I ran [for state legislator] in 2022, 40% of the seats in Missouri were uncontested,” says Jess Piper, a teacher with a large social media following, and currently chair of Blue Missouri. “Because of all the work we’ve been doing, 18% of the seats are going uncontested. So we are making progress.”
“I was running in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat in 32 years,” Piper said. “Because I was raising money, that Republican had to stay in his district. I forced him to talk about abortion bans and the fact that we don’t have shoulders on our roads and that 30 percent of the schools in Missouri are on a four-day week. I forced him to talk about that when he was wanting to talk about Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
“The road to democracy,” Piper said, “is going right through rural America.”
Wait until the student protests return and everyone remembers why they’re not coming out to vote in November.