From the sound of things, it looks as if “flyover country,” a condescending term for the midsection of America that includes rural states such as Mississippi, is going to get a lot more attention from both political parties in the coming years.
Donald Trump’s election success in rural America is well-documented. If you doubt it, take a look at a map that shows the Southern and Midwestern counties he won on Nov. 8 compared to those won by Hillary Clinton. It was a dominant performance, and rural voters who backed Trump now will expect him to come through on some of his promises about bringing back jobs and improving the economy.
Meanwhile, several prominent Democrats are rightly asking how the party lost its way with so many working people — the group that, not too long ago, was the core Democratic constituency.
One Democrat whose insights deserve a hearing is Tom Vilsack. He has been President Obama’s agriculture secretary since 2009 and before that was governor of Iowa.
Vilsack stated the obvious last week: National Democratic leaders have not been paying as much attention to rural America as they should. He believes the party still is able to appeal to rural voters but for whatever reason has chosen not to.
Most likely, the reason is that Clinton and her fellow Democrats (like most everyone else) thought they had the election clinched, and there was no need to aggressively recruit rural voters. That answer works for the 2016 election, but Democrats and rural voters, especially whites, have been drifting apart for a while now.
Given the national party’s extreme leftward lurch, Democrats might have had a hard time competing with Trump’s populist message. But in retrospect, not even bothering to compete helped seal the election.
Trump paid more attention to this so-called flyover country and it showed. The Associated Press reported that exit polls showed that 17 percent of voters in this year’s election lived in small towns or rural areas, and 62 percent of them voted for Trump.
Seventeen percent is a lot of voters — a demographic equal to other minority measurements such as black voters or Hispanic voters.
It may be easy to ignore flyover country. Unlike voters who are packed into cities and suburbs, people in small towns are spread out across the land. It’s hard work to reach them.
But it sounds as if Democrats might have learned their lesson. A 43-year-old Ohio congressman, Tim Ryan, is challenging 76-year-old Nancy Pelosi of California for her job as House Democratic leader, saying that the party’s message needs to be heard beyond its liberal base on the country’s two coastlines.
Right now, rural voters may not be willing to listen. Democrats did not fall out of favor with a majority of these voters overnight. But the country always benefits from a competition of ideas, and it can only help small-town rural America when both political parties are making serious pitches for its support.
