Historically, rural voters have been neglected in the progressive strategy because it’s assumed they are predominantly conservative voters. We are learning that there are more progressive-minded people living in rural communities than previously thought. In some communities, they are critical to making significant change in key races and battleground states.
In the spring of this year, Dani Cook, RuralVote.org’s Strategic Advisor, embarked on a project to identify the top 100 rural counties where we could build power in 2024 and beyond. Rather than think about the seats or representatives we would like to flip and see what it would take to make that happen, Dani took a data-driven approach and followed where it took us.
After analyzing federal and gubernatorial elections from 2020-2022, she identified the 17 states with the greatest opportunity to build power in progressive policies. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin are the states that made the list. These states and their counties were chosen because of their potential impact on the Presidential, Senate, and House races in 2024. In some cases, the counties may significantly impact multiple races.
Once the Top 100 Rural Counties for Power Building project was completed, Dani led individual state deep dives. In those sessions, we reviewed the process of identifying the counties and population data, including rural population percentages, voter registration, and turnout numbers. Most importantly, we discussed how best to use this data for funding, organizing, etc.
These sessions were recorded. The recording and a copy of the individual state PDF presentations were emailed to everyone registering for that state’s deep dive.
CONTACT
If you’re interested in our team presenting about this topic, please e-mail Dani Cook at dani@ruralvote.org.
