5 votes

Can the Democrats win back farm country?

2 comments

  1. alyaza
    (edited )
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    it'd certainly be nice if they did, but they don't per se need it, is the thing, and so it's probably not high on their priorities. no offense to farmers, but the only traditionally...

    it'd certainly be nice if they did, but they don't per se need it, is the thing, and so it's probably not high on their priorities. no offense to farmers, but the only traditionally farmer-associated state which is really competitive, iowa, is electorally more of a topping off of any democratic victory now, and not a crucial path to victory as it might have been during the 1990s and 2000s. congressionally, it's neither the swing seat to the senate nor rich enough in house seats to probably be the difference in the house. traditional midwestern farmers are also just plainly too consolidated in states swinging hard to the right--and broadly too culturally conservative and white--for them to be a crucial electorate for the democratic party.

    as far as this claim goes, i'd heavily dispute that:

    Another recent analysis found that Democrats essentially have to win back more rural voters to win the White House in 2020. Thanks to years of Republican-friendly gerrymandering, there are simply not enough urban and suburban voters who reliably vote for Democratic candidates to swing the electoral map in their favor.

    2018 demonstrated there's a very reliable path to 270 in the electoral college and 218 in the house, and it really runs through suburban whites, not rural voters or farmers. the three iowa seats which flipped for example did so because of suburban swing voters breaking hard against republicans, not because of populist rhetoric by democrats winning over rural voters. 2016 was also functionally decided by 70,000 votes spread across three states where democrats underperformed with their best demographics, and had they not it's likely they'd have won. i don't foresee that being the problem in 2020.

    also, maybe it'd be nice to shave the margins with rural whites, but just as a matter of practice rural whites simply don't matter much in most states to the margin. in texas, for example, with beto o'rourke's meteoric campaign the vote in all but the 30 largest counties swung 61,000 votes in favor of the republicans; the 30 largest counties, in contrast, swung 1,090,000 votes in favor of the democrats, mostly on the back of the suburbs.

    5 votes
  2. monarda
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    This article cautions against using the trade war and its affects on agriculture as a talking point by democrats looking to gain traction in rural communities.

    This article cautions against using the trade war and its affects on agriculture as a talking point by democrats looking to gain traction in rural communities.