John,
We had another successful rural strategy session that brought together rural organizers, rural candidates and activists for a robust discussion about the challenges we face in getting out the vote in rural areas.
“We are forgotten out here.” – Jessica Piper, rural candidate for the Missouri House
One of the huge challenges rural candidates and organizers face is that the party has not invested in rural organizing infrastructure and rural candidate recruitment like it needs to. In states like Missouri, where Jessica Piper is running for the House, there are several seats where no Democrat is running, effectively ceding control of the state legislature before anyone has even cast a ballot.
“If someone’s gonna do it, it might as well be me.” - Jessica Piper
Candidate recruitment in rural areas is a big problem for Democrats, John. We must invest in rural candidates and rural organizing, if we are to make inroads with rural voters and win.
When we asked organizers how they would run a campaign with a small $10,000 budget, it was nearly unanimous to spend the funds on increasing visibility and direct voter outreach.
“Take some of that digital money and invest it in gas cards.” - Jennifer Kitchen, Finance Director for Rural GroundGame.”
Rural campaigns need to have visibility in the community, whether that’s signs, billboards, attending community events or direct voter outreach from organizers and volunteers who live there. Parachuting folks in from out of town is not as effective as having a local volunteer or organizer talk to their neighbors. And trying to reach everyone in rural communities via Facebook ads is just not going to cut it.
“Just because the road to that rural house is long, if you make the effort to walk down that road and have a face to face conversation, it will be more effective than anything else you could do.” - Jennifer Kitchen
We know Democrats aren’t going to win overnight in rural communities, it’s a long game to reverse the trends we’re seeing. But if we do the work and invest in rural outreach, we can win in rural communities. It’s really that simple.
- Team Rural Vote
P.S. Want to support our rural organizing work and help us get out the vote in rural communities? Chip in $10 to help fund our 2022 visibility campaign in rural battleground states.
Paid for by RuralVote.org PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.