How the House Democrats’ Campaign Arm is Getting Serious About Connecting with Rural Voters

Democrats have only recently wised up to the fact that rural people matter, as the recently released draftthe Democratic National Committee’s 2024 election autopsy report makes clear.

From now until the November 3 midterm elections, Barn Raiser will explore how the political parties and community activists are addressing the concerns of rural and small town Americans.

The series kicks off with an essay by Jacob Burg,  the first rural organizer the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has ever hired. We’ve invited the DCCC’s GOP counterpart, the National Republican Campaign Committee, to offer its approach to rural America as well. We are awaiting a response and will publish it when we receive it.

Join the discussion in the comments section below or submit an op-ed to Barn Raiser’s election editor Suzan Erem at suzan@barnraisingmedia.com.

Last November, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats’ campaign arm tasked with taking back the House majority, launched “Our Power Our Country.” This historic eight-figure investment includes the committee’s first-ever program focused on rural voters. As the first manager of this program, I know we have many reasons to be hopeful as Democrats work to earn every single vote heading into the midterm elections.

Growing up on a farm in Illinois, it was more common than not for my community to feel disconnected from politicians and government officials in D.C. who clearly did not understand the values of rural folks or our ways of life.

Now, as the first ever Rural Engagement Manager for the DCCC, I am eager to help bring that rural perspective to Democrats’ critical and necessary work of holding Republicans accountable for failing rural communities, and ensuring House Democrats genuinely and effectively re-engage rural voters across the country.

Like many other small producers, my family’s farm was squeezed out of business in the mid-1980s during the peak of the farm crisis—leaving us to lease our land and move to non-farm income. Situated in the shadow of Rockford, Illinois, and in Winnebago County—a county and state increasingly dominated by urban areas—politics and government always felt distant and out of reach. My siblings and I grew up knowing we could turn to our neighbors for a tow or to plow our roads after a snow storm, yet we also grew up seeing rural communities like ours portrayed as places of the past and our neighbors as backwards country people who didn’t understand the world they were living in. This image was not only contradictory to what I knew to be true, it was isolating and offensive.

In 2022, I went to work in Congress where I saw first-hand the rural-urban political divide. While small towns were still struggling to recover from the 2008 recession and the pandemic, I saw how the policies being put forward failed to address our issues.

Even today, you look at issues like affordable housing and see rural communities where costs are rising at a faster rate than urban and suburban areas, but this disproportionate impact is not discussed or centered in the political debate. Indeed, the median price of a single family home in rural areas has increased by 61% since the pandemic, compared to 46% in urban areas. Coupling this with the decades-long decline of good-paying manufacturing and local processing jobs and rapid consolidation in the industries that powered rural economies, rural communities have had to navigate patchwork and one-size-fits all policies that often left them out of the fold.

It wasn’t long ago that rural America was a stronghold for the Democratic Party. Rural voters in places like the Dakotas, Arkansas, and Tennessee regularly elected Democratic members to the House, and folks in states like Missouri, Indiana and West Virginia sent Democrats to the Senate. For decades, rural voters were central to the strategy that propelled Democrats to power everywhere from county office to the halls of Congress and the White House.

It’s more important than ever that Democrats invest in rural voters and rebuild representation of rural voices in Democratic policymaking so that rural priorities and perspectives live at the center of our party’s agenda. The DCCC is leading the charge to rebuild that trust and power. Our program is focused on hearing directly from rural communities while working across the DCCC battlefield, which highlights the most competitive House races in the country, and rebuilding our partnership with rural organizations and leaders on the ground who have been doing the work for decades, without visibility or rural-specific support in their efforts.

We have started communicating with rural voters earlier than ever before, through ad campaigns and on the ground directly, to hold vulnerable Republicans responsible for their votes to put the survival of rural hospitals in jeopardy. We have hired rural-designated staff in key districts, and have taken the program on the road to support local county parties, organizers, and campaigns in our shared work in rural communities.

From recruiting and supporting authentic and trusted local figures of their communities who champion their rural backgrounds—folks like Jamie Ager, a 4th generation farmer running in North Carolina’s 11th congressional  district, and Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation President, who is running in Arizona’s 2nd district—to establishing partnerships with rural organizations and leaders nationwide, we’re rethinking how Democrats approach rural engagement. In 2026, we have a historic opportunity to win back rural communities and challenge the narrative that there are only certain places where Democrats can be elected.

It’s no secret why Democrats have this opportunity. Over the past year, rural communities have taken hit and after hit from House Republicans’ chaotic and reckless agenda, building on pain that has been felt for decades.

Republicans preach small town values on the campaign trail, yet they arrive in Washington and fall in line with Republican party leadership, and vote to decimate rural hospitals, gut public education, and advance policies that destroy local economies. They give tax breaks to themselves and their billionaire donors at the expense of rural folks, and sit by while big corporations further consolidate an agriculture industry on the brink of collapse. Republicans say one thing and do another: they claim to fight for rural communities, but their political agenda guts our ability to self-sustain and remain independent. In many cases, they refuse to show up in their districts for roundtables with local leaders or host town halls. Unsurprisingly, rural voters have responded at the ballot box.

Last year, from local elections in small towns in Pennsylvania to high-profile races in Virginia and New Jersey, rural voters have shifted left, souring on Republicans. Democratic candidates who committed resources to showing up, listening, and reaching out to rural constituencies won decisively. This success was made possible by the coalitions of campaigns, rural organizations and everyday folks on the ground. This is the recipe for electoral success—and we are going to build on those successes come November.

I’m hopeful. We have a historic window of opportunity. We’re building a Democratic Party that will retake the House with a coalition that reflects the many communities that make our nation great. We’re rebuilding our tent with, by, and for rural communities so they find a home in the Democratic party once again.

Jacob BurgMore by this author →

Jacob Burg is the Rural Engagement Manager for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), where he is leading the committee’s first designated rural outreach program. Previously, he worked both as a policy and operations staffer on Capitol Hill and on congressional and presidential campaigns. He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University. Proudly born and raised on a farm in Illinois, he currently resides in Washington, DC.