Opinion | The Untapped Power of Rural Voters

In rural areas, small investments can create stunning victories. In a 2016 my organization spent about $2,000 on basic needs like food for volunteers and vans to take people to the polls for a race in Americus, Ga. As a result, we helped win back a seat in the state legislature for Democrats. The district was 66 percent African-American, and entirely winnable, but it had been ignored for years. There are easy wins like this all around the country.

The key to winning rural voters is to center their needs with a compelling rural platform — starting with better jobs, higher wages and economic development. When I’m driving through country roads and I see all the land, I know one advantage rural communities have over urban centers is space for wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies.

Benton County, Ind., has transformed itself with wind farms, for example. Wind developers have paid the county (pop. 8,650) $17 million and spent $33 million on roads and infrastructure. They brought hundreds of jobs for construction workers and about 110 permanent jobs for wind technicians and others.

Just as Mr. Trump’s broken promises to rural America on economic revitalization make him vulnerable, so too do his broken promises on health care. The Trump administration’s proposed 2020 budget would repeal Medicaid expansion and cap Medicaid spending.

This would spell disaster for the one in four rural Americans who rely on Medicaid for insurance. It would also put rural hospitals, which rely on Medicaid for more than 10 percent of their net revenue, at increased risk of closing, taking the care and jobs that they provide.

Unfortunately, by ignoring rural voters until now, progressives have relinquished large swaths of our country to reactionary politicians who are putting extremist policies into place. Consider Alabama’s abortion ban, which forces rape survivors to carry their pregnancies to term. Left unchecked, these politicians will only amass more power.

But it’s not too late. Rural voters share the same values as people in the suburbs and the cities, but they are more likely to articulate them as conservative values. In the South, the language of faith and family resonates with everyone — black and white, rich and poor, young and old.