With a population density of 0.1058 inhabitants/km², Garfield County in Montana can almost claim to be the most sparsely populated place in America. Only one county in Texas (Loving) and one county in Nevada (Esmerelda) have fewer people per square kilometer. Garfield County can also make a pretty good claim on being the most Republican county in the United States.
The last Democratic Presidential candidate to carry the county was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. In the last five Presidential elections no Democratic candidate has managed to receive more than 16%. In the 2000 presidential election Republican George W. Bush won 89% of the vote to Democrat Al Gore’s 7%. In the 2004 presidential election, Garfield County gave 92.08% of its votes to President George W. Bush, with John Kerry receiving 6.21% of the vote. In the 2008 presidential election, Senator John McCain received 87.2% with Senator Barack Obama receiving 9.1%. In the 2012 presidential election, Governor Mitt Romney received 90.2% of the vote with president Barack Obama receiving only 6.4% of the vote. In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump received 91.20% of the vote while Hillary Clinton got 4.75% of the vote.
Garfield County is also Republican at a local level. Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer has never received more than 28% of the county’s vote and no Democratic gubernatorial candidate has carried the county in decades.
After they counted the votes from the special election last night, it turned out that Garfield County went for the Republican by a 90.2% to 5.4% margin. Only 29 citizens of Garfield County cast their ballot for the Democrat, Rob Quist. The Libertarian candidate got 24 votes.
That the Democrats are basically a third-party in Garfield County can be seen from the fact that Bill Clinton only carried 14.3% to Ross Perot’s 9.2% in the 1996 election. But notice that Al Gore got less than half of that percentage four years later (when the true third party vote dropped to 4.3%), and that Hillary Clinton got barely more than a third of that last November (when the third party vote was also 4.3%).
There aren’t enough votes in Garfield County to matter a whole lot, but when Democrats do this badly you see things like Trump netting 619 votes out of a county that only cast 718, and Greg Gianforte netting 457 votes when the county only cast 539. To understand the import of this, consider that Rob Quist carried Hill County, Montana last night where almost 5,000 votes were cast, but it only netted him 17 votes. Quist would have had to carry 26 Hill Counties to match his losses in Garfield.
If Garfield County were an isolated incident, it would just be a bizarrely Republican place with almost no people. But it’s actually an extreme example of what has happened in many counties in Montana over the last twenty years, and particularly in the last eight. And it’s not just Montana. Erosion of Democratic support in sparsely populated areas has been going on all across the country, and most fatally in the Upper Midwest in the last election. Even if the Democrats were never going to win some of these counties, the size of their losses add up and matter a lot. There are a lot of counties where Democrats used to be very competitive and win local races and send people to the state legislatures but where they no longer have even a puncher’s chance.
Montana’s taking a lot of abuse this morning because they just elected a guy who has been charged with misdemeanor assault for body-slamming and punching a reporter without really any provocation at all. But it shouldn’t surprise us that there are areas that are willing to overlook that and give more than nine out of ten of their votes to the criminal. If these areas respected reporters and newspapers, they would have been influenced by the fact that almost no editorial board in the country endorsed Donald Trump for president. Instead, these areas gave a much higher percentage of their vote to Trump than they had to Romney or McCain. Most of the movement to Trump actually came from folks who had voted for Obama rather than from newly engaged folks or from folks abandoning right-wing third parties.
There are a lot of things to worry us in these facts and figures, but one of them is that we can see what happens when these communities don’t have a left-wing alternative to Republicanism. They turn harsh and uncharitable, and the way they express their populist sentiments becomes indistinguishable from fascism. In the recent past, the Blue Dog model of centrism did well enough to win in some places and blunt the losses in others allowing for the party to compete statewide. But that model has collapsed and can’t be revived. These folks need an actual left-wing alternative and what we’ve been offering them has been driving them away in droves. For a while, it was thought that it wouldn’t matter. This was best expressed by Chuck Schumer in 2016 when he predicted, “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” When the results came in, the truth was that nearly the exact opposite happened. And I want to emphasize that it was primarily Democrats who were lost.
Now, the news from last night wasn’t all bad, as you can see by looking at how the results compared to the most recent elections in Montana.
MT-AL in 2016: Ryan Zinke 56%, Denise Juneau 40% (R+16)
MT in 2016 (presidential results): Trump 57%, Clinton 36% (R+21)
MT-AL in 2017: Gianforte 50%, Quist 44% — with 98% reporting (R+6)
Quist clearly improved on Juneau and Clinton’s performance and there are a lot of districts where that degree of improvement will be enough to bring victory. If trends continue, it’s very possible that the Democrats can win back control of the House of Representatives next year. But they haven’t solved their rural problem, and it’s a problem that must be understood in all its ramifications. The Democrats will not win back control of state legislatures if they can’t even compete in most counties in the country. They will continue to lose governors races in places like Maryland and Vermont and New Hampshire and Massachusetts that are still blue in presidential elections. They’ll discover that they can’t expand their Electoral College map and have to play defense in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Iowa where they had been consistently winning. Republicans will continue to feel more threatened by primaries than general elections, pushing them ever further to the right, and even when their candidates assault reporters or murder people on Fifth Avenue, they’ll still win election. A virulent form of right-wing populism will grow and perhaps metastasize into something violent.
There are consequences to this realignment, and none of them are good for the Democrats or the nation.
So, it won’t do to cast all these folks as deplorables and wait from them to die off. It’s simply not true that none of them were ever going to vote for the Democrats no matter what because a lot of them voted for Barack Obama once if not twice. They have problems in their communities and right now the only party offering them something they’re willing to hear is the Republican Party. They need a left-wing alternative that isn’t complacent about their difficulties.
There are two assumptions that interfere with the Democrats accepting these facts. The first is that these folks are beyond reach and that the only way to appeal to them is to adopt right-wing attitudes about cultural issues which would be selling out the party base as well as principles that should not be violated. The second assumption is that they can be reached, but only with the kind of economic populism proposed by Bernie Sanders. Both assumptions are wrong, and their flaws are compounded by a lack of understanding that the Democrats don’t need to win a majority in these areas, but only to reverse the trend away from them.
I have a piece in the upcoming issue of the Washington Monthly on how the Democrats can do better in rural areas without compromising their principles. Keep your eye out for it, because I’m hoping to kickstart this conversation and get it out of the well-worn ruts its been trapped in since Donald Trump inexplicably won the election.
I’m looking forward to your article, partly because talking about problems without looking at solutions isn’t helpful, and partly because I’m tired of the “at least we moved the needle” happy spin that we get from places like Kos. Second place is still the first loser, and Democrats need to be looking at solutions.
You have been beating this drum quite relentlessly for some time. I am very happy to see that you are ready to expound on it in greater detail. I will keep an eye out on my mailbox. I am very anxious to hear what you have to say.
There is still a (very small) Democratic base even in Garfield County MT. Who exactly are these people? Shouldn’t the Democratic establishment be at all curious?
Shouldn’t local Democratic viability in local elections be a first step towards gaining a rural constituency?
Yes, and step 1 would be talk with people, both Ds and Rs will tell you right off why the Ds aren’t persuading enough ppl and what Ds could offer. that will get into issues of role of fed gov. looking at MT, for example, protecting public lands and health care possibly in that order
most consistently.
Still lost, and as boo notes, got clobbered in rural counties.
Not disputing your proposal, just noting the long row to hoe to bring it to fruition.
Just throwing in here (cuz why not?) how disdainful I find myself towards the Gianforte voters who required a violent assault by him on a reporter to enable them to see through his bullshit to what he really is (re: multiple, credible reports of early voters seeking to change their votes — not possible under MT law — after the Gianforte assault audio became public the night before election day, after ~2/3 of votes were already in). With the exclamation point put on what a dishonest, pandering slimeball he is by him going silent from the assault all through the next (i.e., Election) day, then essentially confessing to the assault in his victory speech after being declared the “winner”.
Understand. but ppl see things in a default framework until something shakes that, then suddenly they get a bigger picture. impossible to say what will bring about a changed perspective, may be just a throwaway line, that’s why important to keep at it. [btw I disagree about all that “appeal to emotions not to reason” – that doesn’t solve anything, it’s just very very difficult for people to begin to see through a different framework] the voters are set up now to see how the Rs are getting ready to plunder the public lands. keeping after G for the next months may pay off. I read somewhere – Nate Silver probably – that Quist was a weak candidate. Do you think Amanda Curtis will run against him in 18? she is so sharp, so clear in her analysis
earlier, I was disappointed (and annoyed!) when the Dem nominating convention (after several votes) nominated Quist rather than Curtis (my best guess is that majority felt his name-recognition head start gave him a decisively better chance in a truncated campaign — not saying I agree, I don’t).
So Quist started out with some winning-over of me to do (not for my vote, but for my enthusiasm), which he did with Bernie’s assist (see link above).
I continue to think Curtis is the best thing MT Dems have going for us, so I’m hopeful she’ll continue stepping up for major races (e.g., perhaps Gov or Daines’ Senate seat eventually, though ousting G in ’18 does seem the most logical next stepping stone).
One solution is pretty obvious, no? Not easy, but obvious. Invest billions of dollars to deliver centrist-then-liberal media into these areas, to try to deprogram a chunk of the voters. (I can only presume that if I lived there, I’d vote Republican, because voting Democrat is almost literally unthinkable. We have to change the unthinkability.)
Another is perhaps ‘offer a benefit that is so clear and striking that it’s worth voting for demon-rats?’ Though that strikes me as a stretch.
I understand that most rural areas of the country are served by Sinclair radio and they are buying up another local supplier. Sinclair is a right wing local radio affiliate to the networks. So it is hard to see where we get the voice from.
That’s where the ‘billions’ comes in. But, yeah. I don’t know where we get the billions from. At least not to spend on this, at a loss, in perpetuity.
Well, weekly newspapers are relatively cheap. ?
My job requires me to go into rural areas (driving) in places like Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, etc….
These places are like a foreign place to people that live in cities or college towns, even in the same states.
To entertain myself while driving from point to point, I listen to radio. You know where I am going with this. There are no alternatives regarding talk and new to right wing radio and “christian” radio. I knew of the regular rogue’s gallery of right wing talkers but the christian stuff is even more troubling. Limbaugh and Beck and the others can often be considered entertainment of sorts, the christian radio really beats the drum on the good under assault by evil. Of course, evil is defined by gays and abortion.
We can talk about messaging and I agree with the anti-trust issue you have been beating the drum for but how on earth are they ever going to hear it?
By the way, I try to listen to NPR when I can but in most rural areas, NPR plays classical music rather than having their news and talk shows on.
One thing that is going on that may offer the faintest glimmer of hope. These areas are getting more diverse as the ag and meat processing plants need labor and they are getting more and more immigrants in these small communities. The diversity is opening some minds.
When immigrants accumulate enough money to get out of the meat packing plant, they are opening small businesses, shops and restaurants to serve their communities.
I also get your point that we don’t have to convert all of the white folks in the rural areas, we just need to move the needle more back to your direction but the monopoly of where they get their information and news from makes any messaging extremely difficult.
I made a couple of typos above and should have previewed before I posted. When I said move the needle back to your direction, I meant our direction.
I am a liberal that lives in a red area and I look like all these Trump folks because I am a middle aged white guy.
I live in a rural area sandwiched between two large cities. It has always been Republican Land. These people liked GWB. They liked both wars (and know we would have won if it wasn’t for that Kenyan Socialist usurper). They know the government is the source of all their problems. They don’t want the government in charge of healthcare or anything else, but don’t you dare takeaway their Medicare or Social Security. They know that the Army and the cops are the only thing protecting their way of life. They fear everything else. They point it out to you on Limbaugh and Fox. In essence, there is no way you or any Dem can convince them otherwise.
But… there kids are going to college. Their kids learn to think for themselves and see what is happening. They have the unfair student loans and they see how the system is rigged against them. And all of the colleges and universities nearby are heavily liberal. And they are pushing their fellow students to vote. And that, quite simply, is our only chance.
This is my experience in rural VA. As I’ve said before, when you have hard core GP voting farmers talking proudly of their solar-powered barns and a rapidly growing number of Hispanics and a few Asians. things are going to get complicated. Democrats need to talk about how they’re for solar and the GOP is against and how they’re for small businesses and not job depriving mega-corporations (though it will do no good to inveigh against Walmart or Lowes – that ship sailed a long time ago.
G will run in Nov of course. anyone know (Oagua?) if Amanda Curtis will run aganst him?
I look forward to your article Boo.
As others have said, in addition to policy prescriptions, dems need an antidote to the right-wing wurlitzer in these rural places. What we have today is largely the result of these people being spoon-fed gibberish for decades.
Countering decades worth of gibberish is going to be a long-term project. Whatever attitudes we encounter in rural areas (and I spend my share of time in or near these areas in a very red part of the US) have been cultivated over the course of decades. Building the sort of media networks (between traditional and emerging media) will take capital, and those investing will have to do so with the idea that there is no immediate payoff, but that over the long haul it will be worthwhile. Will take some convincing. In the meantime, all those of us in or near these areas can do is our best. Have candidates on the ballot for every office down to dog catcher. Be living reminders that not everyone in their community listens to right-wing talk shows, or goes to church, and yet we’re good neighbors and citizens. That does not pay off immediately either. Patience is needed. We did not lose these communities overnight. We won’t gain them back to any meaningful extent overnight either.
Decades of bullshit for certain. And those local stations will keep on pumping it out. After awhile I suppose your brain turns numb or something.
I realized very quickly during the years I lived in a rural community that the radio stations were worthless – except for one hard rock station that generally stayed out of politics altogether. For the most part, I kept cassettes I’d dubbed available for long trips, or just enjoyed the silence.
complicit in their own brainwashing by always reaching for that one poison-laden spoon while spurning all others.
“Rural Problem…”
To day the least! I’m seeing this particular MT county as 90% Repub under virtually all iterations. I guess Obama got twice what Hillary got, but the Repub still got the expected 90% even then. Are we really talking about looking for another 2% of their vote as a “victory”? Clearly, the HRC “Stronger Together” message likely caused them to froth with rage, and they will do anything they can to reject that idea root and branch. The Dem convention probably caused apoplexy in some of ’em, haha.
“Rural” likely covers a lot of different types of counties. These Montanans are basically anti-gub’mint, particularly anti-federal gub’mint. That was the ethos of these areas even before St Reagan began his assault on gub’mint and the modern “conservative” movement turned gub’mint hatred into a national religion. Now, I don’t know to what level these ranchers benefit from middle class welfare, i.e. agricultural crop supports. They want to keep whatever welfare the Blue state urban rubes keep shoveling their way, of course.
So their vision is no gub’mint for them (most importantly no laws or rules about protecting the environment), and police state surveillance and militarized police/occupation forces for the “diverse” Blue cities of America. If you can find anything they “want” that could overlap with 2% of the progressive vision, you’re a genius.
Essentially they want a failed state, at least at home. That’s their (bogus) reading of American history and the Intent of the Founders as firehosed on them by the billionaire-funded “conservative” movement, which includes the rightwing “Christian” radio pollution described above. But remember these folks WANT to drink the sewage. They aren’t unwilling dupes, in fact the more their alternate facts are countered, the more they cling to them. Reason holds no sway.
Where we are getting to in the ongoing Second Civil War (where we now easily elect violent barbaric thugs as Congressman) is clear: the endgame can only be Gotterdammerung. That is what it would take to alter the thinking of these Montanans. Nothing short of that will do. Hell, the Greenland ice sheets sliding off and raising sea levels 1 meter in 24 hours likely won’t do it….because No Gub’mint is the True America!
I know you’re frustrated with how these folks are voting and what they will tolerate or even celebrate. I’m frustrated about all of that, too.
But I have to keep hitting on this because many of these places gave Obama 45 or 50% of the vote and only gave Clinton 20 or 30%.
And you have to look with clear eyes at the cost of this for how political power is divided up in this country. It’s a catastrophe for the left and a moral problem for our people.
If the left in this country wants to abandon the field in these areas, then the left can’t exist as one cohesive party that has any power.
And, no, I don’t mean by that we need a bunch of pro-life, pro-torture, pro-police killing blacks, anti-environment candidates.
That’s the paradigm we’re trapped in and the paradigm needs to get obliterated.
If we can start from 40% I can see a way forward but under 20% seems impossible. I suspect they are all being talked to by one right wing radio station and that is not going to change. Even that will be tough bucking the money and media.
Bingo.
When Obama got 40% (or thereabout) in these counties, he won easily. When Clinton got 20% (or thereabout) she lost.
We’re not trying to get to 51%. We don’t need to.
We’re trying to get back to where we were only four years ago, although we really need to get closer to where we were in 1996 if we want to cure what ails our politics.
Obama 45 or 50% of the vote and only gave Clinton 20 or 30%.What did Obama have, and Clinton not have?
Platforms? Virtually indistinguishable. If he’s too liberal, she’s too liberal. And vice versa. If he’s not socialist enough, she’s not socialist enough.
Apostolic succession? Enough to drive Sandernistas insane. A third Obama term, you’d think, would get that 45-50% all over again.
Star power. And a Y chromosome.
The answer clearly is President George Clooney.
They refused to allow the woman to continue the policies of the black guy.
It’s not a completely shocking development.
.
They are anti-gub’mint but they are also anti-big-corporation. They want control of their lives whether its against big government or big business (I wont get into whether what they vote for actually represents this). If Democrats don’t offer a message against big business, then the seeming hostility to government wins every time.
The way to counteract this is to 1) frame the message to point out that Republicans are even more pro-gub’mint (after all, “states rights” is just a frame for big state government not answerable to constitutional freedoms, and nobody needs convincing that Rs are heavyhanded on social issues), and 2) not be a big business party. I’m not saying this is easy, with the right wing domination of the airwaves, but Democrats aren’t even trying.
Like other readers, I will be looking forward as a “Monthly” subscriber to what Mr. Longman has in process. But I’d like to emphasize a point I’ve made before here. It is the responsibility of the Democratic Party to offer a political program that will benefit the rural areas Longman is discussing, and to present that program as attractively as possible. But it is not the Democratic Party’s responsibility to provide what amounts to therapy for politically-induced mental illness.
There was plenty of evidence available to the people of these areas, as to the rest of the country, that Donald Trump was a vastly unfit candidate and that he was likely, in office, to betray both the country at large and the people who supported him. There was also plenty of evidence that in doing these things, he would have the support of the Republican Party generally. As expected, they are doing these things — bigly. These voters have agency, and in the end they are responsible in the eyes of history for how they use that agency — and for its consequences.
Robert Heinlein put the point well in “Starship Troopers”: “The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority . . . other than through the tragic logic of history. . . . If [they] voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead–and responsibility was then forced on [them] willy-nilly and destroyed both [them] and [their] foundationless temple.”
The Democrats are trying to save these people, along with the rest of the country, from their malice and folly. Perhaps they can try better and more successfully. But nothing can relieve these rural voters of the duty to vote in a more thoughtful way. When they get into the voting booth, they are there alone — Limbaugh, Jones, and the self-described “Christian” hate-radio voices don’t go in with them.
That is true excepting after all the right wing radio for decades their brains have become addled. They all tell each other they are right, 100% of the time, especially in places like rural Montana where no other voice is admitted. It feeds their brain with little bugs, not unlike that tv show Braindead, I suspect, that leave them incapable to think.
You write:
I am sorry, Booman, but i do not buy this on any level whatsoever.
First of all, you are way too smart not to understand why he won the election. He won the election because he reached a wide swathe of voters who admired his anti-PermaGov rhetoric and behavior.
Anti-PermaGov and anti-PermaGov Media.
Secondly…since I am quite sure that you do understand that on some level…why do you continue to write things as if you are innocent of the truth of the matter?
Take this latest Gianforte tempest in a teapot. About 90% pro-Gianforte in Garfield County??? Who knew!!!??? Duh. That’s because he did exactly what 90% of the population there would like to do…and quite probably would do if they were strong enough and/or armed…if some big city fool with a camera aggressively got in their face asking them hostile questions while they were walking down the street of Garfield County’s county seat, Jordan MT.
Blow this up real good and you have the answer about why Trump won. He won because he said…and acted out…the things that his supporters wanted to say and do but felt that they could not say and do because they were in too weak a position to get away with it.
All the rest of the excuses from the Dems are pure bullshit.
There is a good article up today in Counterpunch that covers this idea pretty well. Here’s a sample. Go read the whole thing. (The title pretty well says it all.)
Believe it or not, the so-called “deplorables” that elected Trump are quite familiar with these Democratic/Republican/PermaGov problems…on a corporeal level. They see their culture(s) and economic position(s) being progressively minimized by “identity politics” (read “racially and culturally-based politics”), and Trump promised them that he would end those problems.
So…they voted for him.
They didn’t support Bush III, they didn’t support Kasich or Cruz or any of the other front-runner Republicans any more than they supported HRC, because they correctly surmised that those pols were one way or another all part of the same PermaGov problem.
In a comment above, Ocotillo covers a number of interesting points.
I only disagree with a couple of things said in that post. When I realized that Trump was likely going to win the presidency in early March, 2016, I too was driving through other“badlands” (north/central PA/, western/central NY) while listening intently to the radio, and it was quite evident that the overwhelming information that the residents were getting was virulently pro-Trump. Where I disagree here is as follows. Even if the Dems raised millions and millions of dollars and somehow magically produced a localized, country-wide network of rural, pro-Dem radio stations, unless they simultaneously completely reversed their various stands on economics, so-called “morality” and job loss, the residents would simply not tune in to listen. Besides which, if the Dems did that on their current, absolutely huge media network they wouldn’t need local radio in the first place. Everybody has a TV and everybody is exposed to CNN and other establishment TV news every time they walk into a Dunkin’ Donuts or the local bank. They presently just ignore the centrist propaganda for what it really is…centrist propaganda.
Ocotillo’s observation is quite accurate that minority members who have moved to areas like this and joined the community rather than remaining separated from it have been overwhelmingly accepted in most areas. I have seen this myself in rural Maine and elsewhere…over and over and over again for 30+ years.
There goes the “racist” idea…
Really.
So…what are you left with as a Democrat?
Really???
If you think that you cam]n sell that in Bozeman, MT, Scranton, PA or any other damned semi-rural, majority white, semi-depressed area of the country, you are sadly deluded.
So…what’s your solution, Booman?
Really.
More of the same?
You are familiar with the definition of insanity as “Repeating an action over and over again, even after it has been proven to fail”, right?
So…nu?
Whatchoo gonna do about it!!!???
You end your post with this:
Until you and the other well-meaning Dem workers…media and otherwise…stop categorizing Trump’s successes as “inexplicable,” you are not going to reach the people who elected him. They don’t much like big, negative words like “deplorables” and “inexplicable,” especially when they are applied to their own actions…actions which they themselves do not consider either deplorable or inexplicable. And if you were to insist that you are right and get in their face about it, they well might be tempted to “bodyslam” you. They feel like they have lost any other powers to rebel…might just as well smack somebody in the face and get it over with.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
I largely agree with you BUT I think you’re wrong about the racism. They have been welcomed by the community AS INDIVIDUALS as in “you’re one of the good ones.” As often as not they support racist policies or attitudes to anyone they havent gotten to know.
That’s the way it starts. Of course. they have been raised a certain way.Haven’t we all, one way or another? But over time? When they find so many “good ones?” When they see so many “bad ones” from their own societal/economic/racial group? These are not stupid people, most of them. Neither are they particularly smart in an intellectual, “educated” way. But they are not “stupid.” Put the average college professor out with them in a boat on rough seas or doing some other kind of skilled labor and you will see how “smart” the educated ones are.
Our leftiness elitism too often mistakes social standing for intelligence. It just ain’t that way. And that’s precisely how we ended up with Trump.
AG
Who the hell are you Gilroy? I perused your comment and found almost nothing of value in it.
There is actually a fair amount to say about this seat. Unlike some of the swing state Senate races in ’16 (WI, NC, PA, FL), this is a case where Clinton significantly under performed.
But sometimes the weeds make people lose the forest.
So some simple math:
Simple Math: MT margin ’16: 15.6.
Current avg generic ballot: Dems +9,
Swing from ’16, 10.1.
Projected MT margin: 5.5.
So this was about exactly what you would expect given the generic ballot polling.
The problem is that even a generic ballot win of 10 points might not be big enough to take back the House given the way the districts are drawn.
The good news here is that the weakness in rural areas that we saw at the top of the ticket in ’16 (And I HATE everyone saying this is a rural problem – it’s not – it’s a downscale white problem) may not be baked in. Certainly that is one of the lessons of the Montana result.
No U.S. House district gerrymandering here!
Since we only get one Rep, the district is the entire state.
From what I have read, the DCCC did virtually nothing to help Quist (too little, too late) and same with Ossoff.
As I have said here many times, the national and state Democratic party organizations have abandoned my rural community in Colorado. Obama did not, and he won our fairly conservative county by 18 votes in 2012 and lost by only a single vote in 2008. We have new and more progressive leadership on the state level, so we’re hopeful. But Bernie doesn’t seem to have been able to convince the national organizations they need to get off their butts and do something.
Rural demographics are changing (in-migration of people who are more liberal and/or more racially and ethnically diverse), which should benefit the Democratic Party. But these people need to have reasons to join and work for and donate to the Democratic Party. Where is the organized campaign to do that?
The party needs to be re-energized and built from the very bottom up, precinct by precinct, by clearly articulating a positive, inclusive vision for the country. Something I believe Bernie did in spades. And still does.
Thread:
https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/867960156553793537
There are several issues that Dems can win on:
restrictions went through in SD? that’s nuts.