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Jaime Harrison on the Disappearing Rural Democrat

A frank discussion with the onetime Senate candidate and former D.N.C. chair about why he still thinks Democrats can compete in rural America—and what it will take to win back red states.

Jaime Harrison
"The first step is showing up. It’s low-hanging fruit to go into urban, suburban areas where you have concentrations of Democratic voters. It takes a little more time and energy and effort to go into rural communities," says Jaime Harrison. Photo: Erika Goldring/Getty Images FOR ESSENCE
Leigh Ann Caldwell
November 30, 2025

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Over the past decade, Donald Trump has turned America’s town-and-country political divide into a bottomless chasm you could see from space, winning rural counties by 40 points in 2024 and seemingly extinguishing Democratic hopes in farm country for a generation. And yet, it wasn’t so long ago that Bill Clinton, a Democrat from rural Arkansas, won nearly half the rural vote. Barack Obama lost it by less than eight points in 2008. As late as 2010, dozens of Blue Dog Democrats represented rural House districts.