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DEMOCRATS’ RURAL PROBLEM IN WISCONSIN  
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Christina Lieffring
April 9, 2024
The Progressive
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_ Now that the state has fair election maps, the only thing stopping
the left from flipping rural districts is themselves. _

Jill Brunscheen, a Joe Biden supporter, attends a rally outside the
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry on September 21, 2020 in Manitowoc,
Wisconsin., (Stephen Mature GettyImages-1228645113-1536x1033)

 

In 2022, Brad Pfaff was running for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional
District, a mostly rural region encompassing western and central parts
of the state. Pfaff, a state senator, comes from a farming family and
has a resume full of Democratic and agricultural bona fides. His
opponent, Derrick Van Orden, attended
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“Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on January 6, 2021. While
photographs allegedly show him marching with the crowd toward the
Capitol, he has denied that he entered the building.

Mere weeks before the election, national Democratic groups canceled
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TV advertisements for Pfaff’s campaign. Despite losing party
support, Pfaff lost by only four points
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outperforming both presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Joe
Biden in the district in 2016 and 2020, respectively. 

“I’ve been very blunt—very blunt—with the Democratic
leadership in the United States House of Representatives for walking
away from the 3rd Congressional District,” Pfaff says. “I’ve
been very blunt with the leadership in the state of Wisconsin with the
Democratic Party that we need to be committed to the people, all the
people, of this state, including our rural residents.”

In February, after a long, drawn-out legal fight, new legislative maps
were signed into law in Wisconsin. The Princeton Gerrymandering
Project gave both
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new state legislature maps an “A” letter grade for partisan
fairness; previous maps
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enacted in 2011 and 2022, were given an “F,” and considered
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extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States.”

The new maps and the fall election, where all state Assembly and
Senate seats will be up for grabs, have generated a lot of optimism
among Wisconsin’s Democrats. As Gloria Hochstein, chair of the Rural
Caucus of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, put it in February,
“Even in the few days we’ve had since we now know what the new
maps look like, there has been a dramatic change in interest in
running for office.”

“Two years ago, we were just frustrated,” Hochstein adds. “We
almost had to force people to run for Assembly and Senate seats when
they knew they were going to get trounced . . . . I think candidates
and voters are thinking, ‘you know what? Maybe my vote will count
now.’ ” 

Pfaff shares that optimism, albeit cautiously. He, like many other
rural Democrats, believes there are opportunities for the party to
grow in rural Wisconsin, but it will take some work. 

“Democrats can do a lot better in rural areas,” Pfaff says. “The
first place they need to start is . . . to recognize that [Democrats]
need to invest and appreciate and respect the people that live in
rural Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin is not alone in witnessing a rural decline in Democratic
support. Nicholas Jacobs is an assistant professor of government at
Colby College in Maine and co-author of _The Rural Voter_
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is based on the survey responses of 10,000 rural residents across the
country. According to Jacobs, Democratic candidates have been shedding
rural votes since the 1980s. “Donald Trump is actually just a
continuation of a trend,” Jacobs says. “[If] you draw a line since
1980, Trump does just a little bit better than he should have given
that trend.”

The dynamics behind this decline, Jacobs argues, are multifaceted. But
one common misunderstanding is the assumption that rural voters have
fundamentally different concerns from the rest of the country.   

“A lot of the problems that rural people are confronting are
problems that people outside of rural America are confronting,
especially poor people,” she says. “Rural America, on average, is
poorer than suburban and urban America, but there are deep pockets of
poverty even in the suburbs [and], of course, in our major cities. And
a lot of the anxieties and concerns and the motivations that have been
driving a lot of rural politics are no different than those that are
driving other geographic subgroups. Now they’re voting differently,
which is, of course, very interesting.”

Jacobs points to two key differences that shape rural politics: First,
rural voters tend to believe in meritocracy and that hard work is
enough to be successful; and second, an awareness that, culturally,
their communities are looked down upon. The latter is a particularly
sensitive point because “rural people, by and large, love living in
rural America.”

“As much as it’s called a ‘hellhole,’ a wasteland of
alienation, economically collapsed, [and] socially disconnected, most
rural Americans don’t want to leave,” Jacobs says. “There’s
this pride there, and I think that’s what makes these cultural
depictions especially noxious to many rural people.”

In _What’s the Matter with Kansas?_
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historian and journalist Thomas Frank sought to understand why rural
voters seemed to routinely vote against their economic interests. That
question assumes that, at least to some extent, rural voters are being
tricked by conservatives to vote against Democrats. But for Jacobs,
the legacy of Democratic-led, pro-corporate reforms—such as the
signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during the
Clinton Administration—was significant in pushing rural voters
away.    

“I’m not saying that conservatives or Republicans are guilt-free
in any of that . . . . [Former USDA Secretary] Earl Butz under the
Nixon Administration pursued agricultural consolidation just as
aggressively as his Democratic predecessors,” Jacobs says. “But
the idea that Democrats are somehow guilt-free in this, I don’t
think is correct. And in one instance, they have a whole lot of
baggage, which is the fact that it was a Democrat that signed
NAFTA.”

Globalization and deindustrialization wrought havoc on rural
communities, where residents tend to have lower incomes per capita
than those in suburban or urban communities. Bill Hogseth, an
organizer with GrassRoots Organizing in Western Wisconsin (GROWW),
often goes door-to-door to canvas around local issues. He often hears
from residents who say “their local economy sucks,” that “Main
Street is hollowed out,” and “that there’s not a place where you
can buy socks, we don’t have a hardware store anymore, things like
that.” 

“The sense that we had from our conversations,” he adds, “is
that people’s analysis is a lot less about right versus left, or
Democrat versus Republican, and more towards top versus bottom . . . .
that there’s an elite in our country, and that [this] elite is
rigging the rules of the economy so that they benefit and that regular
working people are not able to prosper.”

“And there’s also a feeling that ‘one party or the other, not a
lot has changed in my town. Depending on who’s the President or
who’s in the Senate, things are still getting harder and shittier
for me and the people who I love regardless,’ ” Hogseth says.
“And it’s to the point where you sense a lot of people are just
tuning it out.”

One of the issues GROWW has been working on is water quality in
proximity to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Multiple
sources told _The Progressive_ that issues and values such as local
control, conservation, clean water, and reviving the rural economy
could be keys to the Democratic Party reconnecting with these
voters. 

But State Senator Jeff Smith, a Democrat who represents Eau Claire,
Wisconsin, believes that good policy is not enough; candidates, Smith
says, should also be authentic and open about their progressive
values, even when talking to voters who disagree. Eau Claire has
historically been home to competitive districts composed of half the
city and the outlying rural areas. Smith lost two state Assembly races
to Republican Representative Warren Petryk but flipped
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GOP-gerrymandered district in 2019. 

“I win there because of the fact that I think I am considered
pragmatic, but I am not somebody who deserts my progressive values,”
Smith adds, noting that he’s advised many candidates to be
themselves during their campaigns. “That’s what people really look
for. They want a choice in their candidates, and we don’t always
give them that choice. It’s thinking that, because [voters are]
leaning one way, we’re going to have to really run to that side of
the argument and then try to satisfy and win over people from that
side. It just doesn’t work. I think that people appreciate when you
give them a real, honest choice.”

Smith has an old 1999 farm truck fitted with a sign that he can flip
out when it’s parked that says, “Stop and talk to State Sen. Jeff
Smith.” He tries to publicize in advance where he’ll be so that
voters or “anyone driving by or happens to see” can stop and talk
to him.

“​​I’m a realist and always keep perspective,” Smith says.
“What these maps do is give us an opportunity to be competitive.”

Smith believes that competitiveness will not only be good for
Democrats but also Republicans and voters.

“Getting elected is a challenge,” Smith says. “It’s probably
been good for me to have a different perspective than a lot of my
colleagues who have been under a gerrymandered map for so long that
even my Democratic colleagues . . . don’t really have to do all the
things that I’ve just talked about: listening and considering other
viewpoints. But now I think everyone will have to learn how to do that
a little bit better, and I think that’s going to be good for
everyone.”

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech._

_Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we publish on national politics,
culture, and events including U.S. foreign policy; we also focus on
issues of particular importance to the heartland. Two flagship
projects of The Progressive include Public School Shakedown
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to resist the privatization of public education, and The Progressive
Media Project [[link removed]], aiming to diversify our
nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. _

* Wisconsin
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* rural voters
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