DES MOINES, Iowa — As Democratic presidential candidates descended on the Iowa State Fair, a plane buzzed overhead, an ominous warning fluttering behind it on a banner: “Focus on Rural America.”
Democrats hoping to win the White House in 2020 recognize how critical that advice is after 2016, when Hillary Clinton turned in strong performances in many cities and suburbs but lost rural voters 2-to-1, falling short to President Donald Trump by slim margins in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats clawed back some gains in rural counties in the 2018 midterm elections, and they want to build on that momentum in 2020.
But the presidential primary, often dominated by cultural issues and Trump-driven hot buttons, including immigration and race, isn’t helping their case.
“There’s good reason to worry because the reality is this: There’s a fundamental values gap between the mainstream Democratic Party, which tends to be more socially liberal and cosmopolitan in its outlook, and rural and small-town voters,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster whose past campaigns include Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ 2018 victory and the 2018 defeat of Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.). “Unless a candidate can build bridges across that gap on the basis of values, it’s very difficult to make any policy proposal matter.”
