The lesson of 2018 for Democrats is not that they need a more moderate message for rural voters

… We’re now firmly in the analysis phase of the 2018 midterm elections, an election cycle in which Democrats slightly overperformed expectations in the House while seeing a net loss in the Senate, winning two-thirds of the contested Senate seats. One of the central questions for the party centers on […] Read more »

Across South, Democrats Risk Speaking Boldly and Alienating Rural White Voters

When Mike Espy, the Democrat challenging Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, faced his opponent at a debate ahead of this Tuesday’s runoff election, he had to make a choice: confront Ms. Hyde-Smith over her comments about attending “a public hanging,” which evoked the state’s racist history, or take a milder […] Read more »

Two Americas, only 30 miles apart

As the US mid-term elections approach, the real divide when it comes to values and voting is between rural and urban America. And whether it’s their views on race, guns or Donald Trump, people in these places might as well be living on different planets. As part of the BBC’s Ask […] Read more »

NPR Poll: Rural Americans Are Worried About Addiction And Jobs, But Remain Optimistic

Rural Americans are preoccupied with the problems of opioid and drug addiction in their communities, citing it as a worry on par with concerns about local jobs and the economy, according to a new poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public […] Read more »

Suburban-Rural Districts Are Turning on the GOP

… Separated by about 130 miles, one very large mountain range, and a huge cultural chasm, Issaquah and Wenatchee are two poles of the same electoral battleground: Washington’s Eighth Congressional District. There the race to succeed retiring Republican Congressman Dave Reichert encapsulates into one district both sides of the central […] Read more »