Is the Rural Democrat Extinct?

Contributed

Being a Democrat in the reddest municipalities of Erie County is not easy, and although Corry, Erie county's second city, went for Trump in 2024, there is a hearty enclave of Democratic voters that is continually fighting to have their voices heard.

Editor's note: Several individuals interviewed for this story requested anonymity due to concerns about local backlash in their predominantly Republican community. Pseudonyms have been used to protect their identities.

"I almost got beat up. But we did have our guns." When Jimmy Taylor walked into a Corry-area biker bar no one much noticed the mustachioed, long-haired Harley rider. Like a Yuengling, he fit right in—or at least appeared to. Taylor soon found himself in a shouting match with Trump supporters that nearly turned violent. I wondered, "How did people know you were a Democrat?" Taylor winked and barked in his best gravel, "Have you heard me speak?"

Welcome to rural Erie County, where being a Democrat might get you pummeled. In 2024, Trump took 68 percent of the Corry vote. This neatly mirrors the president's monopoly of rural, small-town America. In 2024, Trump won 93 percent of all rural counties by beating Harris 60 to 40 in small metropolitan areas and rolling her, 69 to 31, in rural quadrants. Peter Johnson, Taylor's motorcycle riding companion, is not surprised. He helped build a giant Kamala Harris sign in Corry. Johnson told me "After it was torn down, I helped repair it, then it was graffitied."

Taylor and Johnson describe one side of Corry and small-town America's political tribalism. But Kat DiVittorio urges us to look deeper. The 36-year-old Corry native is the assistant director of the Corry Higher Education Council. The registered Democrat has no love for the president, but she adores and understands her hometown. She told me that for Corry-area Trump voters, they think "he sees me." DiVittorio explained, "The people of Corry don't feel seen or heard—they are bitter. They feel as if they have to defend their right to exist. It might not be the case, but people feel that way."

Liberals may roll their eyes at "he sees me," but DiVittorio is onto something. Being seen matters. In 2008, Barack Obama saw rural Americans. The Democrat launched his general election campaign in rural Virginia. More than a year of rural organizing in swing states, like Pennsylvania, raised the Democrat's rural vote by eight to 12 percent. The Democrat won all four of Corry's voting wards. Sure, John McCain beat Obama 62 to 37 percent in rural Pennsylvania. But keeping the rural margins close was entirely the point. By doing so, Obama not only took Pennsylvania and the swing states, he won Indiana, lost Missouri by 3,000 votes and kept the race tight in Montana and North Dakota on his way to landslide victory.

Sixteen years later, Democrats have all but disappeared from Corry and rural America. Lynlee Thorne, a Democratic organizer with Virginia's Rural Groundgame, hears a constant refrain in rural Virginia "I've never met a Democrat before." Alana Cloutier, an organizer in rural southeast Kansas told me she hears "I've never met a Democrat before" along with "You are the first person to knock on my door since 2008." Absence matters. In 2024, Trump pummeled Harris 73 to 26 percent in rural Pennsylvania. That proved the difference in a close race.

I, like many, was fooled by the Harris campaign's turnout efforts. Last fall, Harris opened more than 50 offices in Pennsylvania. The campaign based several paid staffers in Erie. Thousands of volunteers traveled to swing states to knock on an eye-popping 42.6 million doors. Despite this, Harris lost every single swing state. A Midwest political analyst explained it to me, "Tactics are not strategy." In other words, parachuting out-of-towners to canvass in the final weeks of a campaign has limited utility. Jim Hightower, the iconic Texas populist, put it to me bluntly, "You don't know the language, the issues, the backroads, or the locals. You don't know the place. You are a tourist."

Thorne understands DiVittorio's "he sees me." She explained to me that one in five voters, or almost 50 million Americans, live in towns like Corry or rural regions outside of it. Democrats spend 3 percent of party money to reach this 20 percent of voters. Thorne exclaimed "Three percent, c'mon! What would it look like if we tried? We don't deserve votes that we don't earn. The GOP is present. We are not. They show up. If we don't show up, we concede they are entitled to power."

To be sure, the Erie County Democratic Party is better than most. Jim Wertz, when he served as county chair, opened a satellite office in Union City and expanded the Democrats' rural outreach. He did as Jess Piper, the founder of the rural-based Blue Missouri, explained, "We start by being there, by being around for more than a few weeks before an election." As a result, Joe Biden took Erie County in 2020. But Erie County is just one of 3,143 counties in America; Democrats have a county chair in approximately 300 of them. In vast stretches of the nation, the party is absent. Piper remembers when Democratic Clubs hosted potlucks, discussed issues, and ran candidates in rural Missouri. In 2024, her husband asked, "why was my ballot so short?" Piper disappointedly admitted "no Democrat is running for county office."

As DiVittorio warned, when folks don't feel seen or heard — they turn bitter. And rural, small-town voters have good reasons for bitterness. Since 1980, rural-urban income inequality has grown by 40 percent. Nationally, the rural share of the nation's GDP is 7.8 percent. As the fruits of a knowledge economy flow increasingly to the urban and highly educated, rural small-town America gets left behind. Piper explained that in her rural Missouri town, "there is no place to buy milk. The school is all that is left."

No place embodies the rural-urban divide more than Corry. Nearly a century ago, in 1930, the town reached its population peak at 7,400. Today, 6,100 call Corry home. In nearby Union City and Jamestown, New York, the story is the same. Sue Miller, a retired, lifelong resident of Corry longs for the days when it used to be "a thriving community." Linda Murphy, another retired Corry resident, recalled in 1971, "The day after I graduated [high school]. I applied for three jobs. By the time I got home, they were already calling." Jimmy Taylor remembered that in 1970s Corry, "there was a job on every street corner."

Well into the 1970s, big employers like Corry-Jamestown, Ajax Ironworks, and Erie Plastics drove the economy. Corry was home to half a dozen grocers, several local jewelers, and national chains, including Sears, Montgomery Wards, and J.C. Penney. When those behemoths closed, Murphy sighed and told me, "Little bitty businesses replaced them." She, and Taylor, laughed about the grant money lavished upon startups at the local office park. The duo told me in unison, "They would move there, get grants, promise jobs, and evaporate." Corry's downtown is quaint and home to upscale boutiques, restaurants, and a yoga studio that are all adjacent to a rails-to-trails pathway. But even DiVittorio admits there is a sentiment beyond the town that, "Nobody wants to live in dying and stupid Corry."

Corry is far from stupid. My focus group of Corry residents are smart and perceptive. Some are lifelong Republicans, others, like Taylor, are hardcore Democrats. All fear Trump's overreach. Sue Miller told me, "There's a lot of people [in Corry] who feel this way — but they feel powerless." Taylor admitted, "I don't want the recognition [of being a Democrat]. I shouldn't be here running my mouth!" These are smart, patriotic Americans — who happen to disdain Trump.

Murphy asked, "Who said America isn't already great?" Taylor added, "Here, you can do anything, you can be anything. It is the greatest place." In 2004, a big city, multiracial Democrat agreed with Murphy and Miller. He termed his country a "magical place: America." That 2004 speech rocketed Barack Obama to political stardom. In 2008, he won Corry, and a majority of the white working-class vote in a series of Northern states stretching from Minnesota to New Hampshire. He became the first Democratic president to win a majority vote in consecutive elections since FDR. From Corry to Harvard Square, Obama saw all Americans.

Rural America is not inherently conservative or liberal. Jim Hightower, a longtime Bernie Sanders ally, explained this to me. In 1982, the lefty populist ran for Agriculture Commissioner in Texas, a state Reagan had just won by 9 points in 1980. To win, Hightower needed rural votes. On the campaign trail, he met with a Tyler, Texas judge for an endorsement. Outfitted in a starched shirt, cowboy hat, and boots, the judge was seemingly sent from a Hollywood set. As Hightower explained his stance on natural gas monopolies, the Judge leaned back, stretched his legs, and put his boots on the desk. Finally, he interrupted the young candidate to drawl, "Wouldn't you say, they [the monopolies] are f**kin' us?" Hightower got the endorsement and won his race.

Laughing at this memory, Hightower said of this judge, his own father, and many rural Americans, "Even though they call themselves conservatives — they are mad as hell, little 'd' democrats. Believe in the power of ordinary people. They are the champions of this country."

Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of American political history at Gannon University. You can follow him on Twitter/X @jhueybloodworth or reach him at bloodwor003@gannon.edu