BUCKS COUNTY, Penn. — From the start of this election, Democrats touted their extensive get-out-the-vote and campaign office operation in rural, conservative areas of the seven battleground states. Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz and campaign surrogates publicly expressed confidence in the campaign’s ability to “lose by less” and to outpace President Joe Biden’s 2020 run in those areas.
But state and national rural organizers who spoke to NOTUS in the wake of Harris’ loss said the campaign often ignored their concerns about the rural strategy. Above all, they said, the campaign and the Democratic National Committee’s rural outreach was too little, too late.
For all the camo hats and pheasant hunting, the barnstorms and roadside shop visits and offices opened where they had never been before, Harris did worse than Biden across the board in rural areas, and Donald Trump performed better in those same areas than he ever had before.