I am a rural voter. My county is home to 8,500 people. We have two stoplights. When I first volunteered for a campaign in 2008 Obama won with over 1,600 votes. This year Biden received around 550. We went from having democrats representing us at every level to all republicans.

Our partisan collapse isn’t tied to any one slogan it’s our inability to reach places like my home town. We just gave up. I want to work in my home town. I want to RUN in my home town. There are real problems in rural areas that can be solved with a democratic platform.

Yet to work on rural organizing in 2019 I had to leave home for Iowa. I was never in the fight to win the damn White House I was in this fight to save my rural hospital.

I come home after a rough 2020 to a home town that is even redder and a rural hospital that is still on the brink of collapse like so many other rural healthcare providers. Yet it still remains to be seen if there is place for rural organizers in this state.

We don’t need polls and consultants, we need to talk WITH people. We need to listen to them. Rural voters know what they need, the same as anyone else: someone who gives a shit about their future and spends more time listening and organizing than talking.

There are rural county parties that haven’t been reached by their respective state parties all cycle. There are large swaths of the country that political organizations don’t even bother visiting. And there are HUNDREDS of rural organizers that no one even thinks to invest in.

Any campaign, state party, or political organization that does “rural outreach” but doesn’t actually build their program with rural folks isn’t doing rural outreach, it’s just guessing. It’s unsustainable.