Pennsylvanian's general election takes place in November and a new poll from the Rural Democracy Initiative showed likely voters from rural areas of the state are up for grabs.
Patrick Toomey, researcher and partner of Breakthrough Campaigns, said the data in the survey show rural voters are what he called "economic populists," and do not want the government calling the shots on certain issues such as abortion.
"Rural voters do feel like things are getting worse for them and in their communities economically," Toomey reported. "The vast majority of rural voters, they are economic populists and their policy preferences align with many progressive goals. It is very clear that rural voters are not a cultural monolith either."
Toomey added while rural America tends to be more conservative than its urban and suburban counterparts, certain conventionally progressive policy items such as focusing on retirement security and making taxes more fair are not being associated with President Joe Biden or Democrats.
Toomey pointed out half of rural voters consider Republicans to be more dedicated to prioritizing the needs of working families, compared to just 32% who shared those sentiments for the Democratic Party. While the increasing costs of housing, health care and child care are all important issues to rural voters, the data show reproductive freedoms are also a top priority.
"Rural voters are opposed to abortion bans," Toomey explained. "They have nuanced views around abortion itself, but three-quarters either support it or don't want the government interfering in something that should be left up to women and their doctors."
More than 1,700 voters in 10 states participated in the poll, which found nearly half of rural voters would choose a "culturally aligned" rural Democrat over a Republican businessperson from a big city on the East Coast.
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The future of a big carbon capture project in the Midwest was thrown off balance after a new South Dakota law was adopted. Rural property owners made a big push for the policy and their organizing is getting noticed.
South Dakota's governor just signed a bill prohibiting eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines. It is in response to a proposed line where the company behind it has not secured all the voluntary land agreements it needs. Worried landowners found sympathetic ears in the Legislature.
Sarah Jaynes, executive director of the Rural Democracy Initiative, said outcomes like these reflect the mindset of smaller communities when big projects come their way, potentially affecting their way of life.
"Rural people are not in the habit of fighting things," Jaynes pointed out. "They're in the habit of taking a close look at what's proposed for their communities after decades of exploitation."
She is referring to corporations outsourcing jobs from rural areas, as well as agricultural firms wanting to add larger animal feedlot operations. Jaynes noted the decline of local news outlets is likely playing a role in how communities are responding. Without access to key information, residents are enhancing their coordination to have a bigger voice.
The multistate carbon pipeline is proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions, which wants to capture ethanol plant emissions and store them underground. It touts economic and environmental benefits but some skeptics see it as a power grab, especially if objecting landowners are forced to let it run along their property through eminent domain.
Jaynes explained in a broader sense, rural residents are not confined to narratives about what they care about.
"They want to make sure that they have clean air and water and access to nature," Jaynes emphasized. "They want to take care of their land."
Such sentiments have surfaced in polling from the Rural Democracy Initiative.
As for the Summit project, the new law might lead to a legal challenge. Summit has won permit approval in other states and is trying again in South Dakota. But the uncertainty, along with the land restrictions, could make it harder to begin construction. The governor insists the action will not kill the project, calling it an "opportunity for a needed reset."
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Later this month, on March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a federal fund that aids rural broadband service.
South Dakota advocates say a negative outcome could be devastating for customers.
A conservative organization brought the case, hoping to end a Federal Communications Commission fee that flows into what's known as the Universal Service Fund.
It provides $8 billion a year for telecommunications programs geared toward underserved populations. That includes high-speed internet service in rural areas.
Kara Semmler, general counsel and executive director of the South Dakota Telecommunications Association, said she worries about the impact if the challenge is successful.
"Children will be missing out on educational opportunities," said Semmler, "businesses will lose their competitiveness."
Industry groups say rates for customers, benefiting from the fund, will double if it's struck down.
The plaintiffs contend the fee mechanism used to prop up the fund is more like a tax, meaning Congress should have the oversight.
Semmler said shifting that power would result in funding uncertainty for an industry that relies on long-term planning.
Cellphone service providers and other telecom companies pay the fee that's at the center of the legal argument. Those costs are passed along to consumers across the country through their monthly bills.
Semmler said it's a small price to pay to maintain critical broadband infrastructure in rural pockets.
"It's that ongoing operation, maintenance, and affordability of the product," said Semmler. "It does no good to have infrastructure in the ground if it becomes unaffordable for South Dakota consumers to use."
Semmler said they've had productive conversations with South Dakota's Congressional delegation about "Plan B" strategies.
But she acknowledged the budget-cutting tone in Washington D.C. right now, while adding it would be hard for state government to fill any sudden funding gaps.
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By Ilana Newman for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
One rural Colorado town is working to turn an irrigation ditch into a walking trail to connect the community, get people outside, and grow their recreation economy.
In 2022, Monte Vista, Colorado received a Recreation Economies for Rural Communities (RERC) grant, which helped the city strategize to revitalize main streets and grow their outdoor recreation economy. What’s now known as the Lariat Ditch Project came out of the RERC planning process.
The city of Monte Vista, population 4,070, sits in the middle of the San Luis Valley, a high elevation valley known for agriculture and access to some of the tallest mountains in the state. The region is known for their potato production, as well as growing barley, hay and alfalfa, according to their city manager, Gigi Dennis.
Dennis saw developing the local economy through tourism and recreation as a way to support agriculture and get people to “think about Monte Vista in a different light.” She wants people to think of the city as an active, enjoyable place to visit and not just an agricultural community.
Local nonprofit organization San Luis Valley Great Outdoors (SLV GO!) applied for and received the RERC grant on the city of Monte Vista’s behalf in 2022 and has since been involved with creating the plan to develop more of a recreation economy in the area. Mick Daniel, executive director of SLV GO!, said they saw a lot of potential for Monte Vista to benefit from more planning around outdoor recreation.
“We were sitting in the middle of like 8 million acres of public land….it kind of felt like there just wasn’t a lot of coordination between our public land managers, our communities, our recreationists,” Daniel said. The planning grant created an opportunity for all of those disparate groups to come together and create a cohesive strategy for the future of the city.
RERC is a program in partnership with the EPAs Office of Community Revitalization, the Forest Service, the USDA, the Northern Border Regional Commission, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Denali Commission.
It provides planning assistance for rural communities to grow their recreation economies. This can look like Main Street revitalization to support bringing visitors into the community, building infrastructure like trails, or creating community consensus on how to attract visitors and manage natural resources.
The Lariat Ditch Project takes a two mile stretch of open irrigation ditch that Daniel said is often filled with trash, pipes it, and places a trail on top.
In conversations with the ditch company, Monte Vista city planner Dwayne Enderle said “they were more than happy to look at placing the ditch into a concrete culvert and placing the walkway on top”. Especially because, according to Daniel, the company was experiencing a huge loss in water due to “seeping through the walls of the ditch”.
The trail would connect main street businesses in Monte Vista to their homes and other recreation opportunities around the area, including passing a half mile from the recently renovated Sky Hi Complex, a conference and event center that hosts Colorado’s oldest professional rodeo.
“What if we can connect this community to these valuable recreation resources? Maybe we don’t think about them as outdoor recreation, but a rodeo pretty much is outdoor rec,” said Daniel. The ditch also passes near downtown, the high school, the golf course, tennis courts, and through several neighborhoods.
The idea to build a trail along or on top of the ditch has been floating around the community for over a decade, Daniel said. But funding has, and continues to be, a challenge. The city of Monte Vista applied for a grant through the University of Colorado in 2024 to fund the project, but as of early January 2025, Dennis said that they have not yet been awarded any funding.
“It’s a $12 million project, which is phenomenal for Monte Vista because my general fund tax base is only about four and a half million dollars…It will be hard to fulfill if we don’t get the grant funding.” Dennis said.
Building trails to connect communities to the outdoors is something that SLV GO! is doing around the region. The Lariat Ditch trail would become a part of the “Heart of the Valley”, a system of trails that will connect the communities of the San Luis Valley to each other and to the public land that surrounds the area.
“You could potentially get on a bike or an e-bike and ride to the BLM or the Forest Service or ride over to dinner in Del Norte or lunch in Del Norte and maybe ride back,” said Daniel.
While these trail systems might also add appeal to tourists visiting the towns, for Daniel, developing the region’s recreation economy looks mostly like appealing to locals, not visitors.
Other towns in the valley, like South Fork, close to Wolf Creek Ski Area and located on the Rio Grande river, and Alamosa, the larger town closer to Great Sand Dunes National Park, see more tourism than Monte Vista. But Daniel knows that small business owners in Monte Vista would also love to see more visitors.
“I think by making it more livable for the people who live there, tourism will be a very pleasant side effect, not a bad side effect. The great thing about tourists is that they go home. They spend money, they go home,” he said.
Ilana Newman wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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