As the 2024 election inches closer, candidates and civic engagement organizers are likely to try and connect with younger voters but for college-age individuals from smaller towns, connections are few and far between.

The Rural Democracy Initiative said 63% of rural youth are infrequent or uncommitted voters and they are among the least contacted by both nonpartisan and political operations. The organization is behind a new effort to strengthen civic engagement for this demographic. Wisconsin-based groups are doing similar work.

Emma Frederick, northwest college organizer for Leaders Igniting Transformation, said rural college students from the western half of the state often feel overlooked.

"They note that this is the first time that anyone's talked to them about voting," Frederick explained. "While their parents might want to help or their parents don't know themselves, this is a new experience for them."

She pointed out one of the main issues young voters from rural areas want addressed is a lack of resources in their hometown school districts. They want to see future generations benefit from having more aid to cover things such as Advanced Placement courses. Nationally, the initiative said such voters also prioritize health care, economic well-being, reproductive rights and climate issues.

Crystal Egbo, northeast college organizer for the group, gets similar feedback on the lack of prior engagement with these students. She emphasized smaller communities are becoming more diverse and there are calls for cultural needs to be considered.

"They're also asking for having more diverse representation on their (college's) faculty and staff, having more diverse representation within local government and within community decision-makers," Egbo added.

According to the initiative, 24% of rural residents are people of color and many are immigrants. It also contended young rural voters of color, who lean toward pro-democracy policies, are significantly underrepresented in elections.


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Virginia will hold three special elections across the state today, the first elections since President-elect Donald Trump's victory in November.

The races may hold key signs for state elections later in November. A state senate and house seat are up for grabs in Loudoun County, where Vice President Kamala Harris trounced Trump by more than 20 points. Another senate district in deeply Republican rural areas outside of Richmond is up for grabs.

Karen Hult, professor of political science at Virginia Tech, said she will be looking to see if Republicans build on their slim wins for president and Congress, and how Democrats have responded following their tough losses and closer-than-expected victories in November.

"That will give us a sense of whether the Democrats have regathered and regrouped, and decided we're going to keep moving forward in the statewide elections this calendar year," Hult explained.

Hult added she does not expect major upsets but special elections traditionally have low turnout, leaving room for a possible surprise or narrower margins. The special elections will likely not affect the power balances in the state legislature.

Virginia made a solid swing toward Republicans this year. Harris only won the state by six points, compared to President Joe Biden's 10-point victory in 2020. Much of it can be attributed to Trump increasing his margins in the Washington, D.C., suburbs like Loudoun County. Hult expects voters will focus on issues such as the federal workforce, spending on public education, and reproductive rights.

She noted Virginia is one of only a few states to hold off-year elections, a barometer of sorts following a presidential election.

"This is seen as an early diagnostic on how a newly elected president is doing. I think Virginia does get -- and probably should get -- a great deal of attention just for getting a sense of what people on the ground are thinking about things going forward."

In November, Virginians will elect a governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the entire House of Delegates.


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Progressive advocates are expressing concerns over President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Amy Adams, partnership director for the advocacy group Progress Iowa, has been on the ground in small, rural towns, hearing concerns from residents about Kennedy's controversial stance on vaccines and his alleged promotion of baseless health claims.

"They didn't want to see vaccines discontinued," Adams reported. "These are individuals who have seen polio in their lifetimes and the impacts of this. And just the concerns with Kennedy specifically and his ties to misinformation and vaccine conspiracy theories."

Those concerns aside, some progressive Democrats are considering supporting Kennedy for his stance on reducing the heavy corporate influence over the U.S. food supply and his goal of getting more chemicals out of what people consume.

Based on the input Progress Iowa has received from people around the state, Adams argued the clear choice for Iowa's senators is to reject Kennedy's nomination.

"We're hearing stories over and over again about people who are cancer survivors, who benefited from research and development, and people who need those around them to be vaccinated so they can be safe and healthy because they are immunocompromised," Adams explained.

Adams added Iowans also had the opportunity to share their views directly with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, one of Iowa's two senators who will vote on Kennedy's confirmation.

Wyoming's State Capitol building has been a National Historic Landmark since 1987 and last month, the Department of the Interior updated the designation with a new context: women's suffrage.

The updated federal designation honors Wyoming's important role in being the first governing body to allow women the full right to vote, in 1869, when the area was a recognized territory. When Wyoming joined the union in 1890, local leaders brought women's suffrage with it.

Keren Meister-Emerich, a member of the League of Women Voters of Cheyenne, said there were national attempts to block the move.

"That was a big controversy nationally," Meister-Emerich pointed out. "And the governor said, 'Well, we'll wait a hundred years if you don't let our women come in voting.' So, very different from other states."

Wyoming, the 44th state to join the union, coincidentally ranks 44th in the nation for the proportion of women currently in its state legislature, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

It is difficult to tell what the state's historical motivations were for women's suffrage.

Robin Hill, a member of the Governor's Council for the Wyoming Women's Suffrage Celebration and a representative of League of Women Voters of Wyoming, said some theories include territorial leaders wanting more women to move there, one political party believed it would win women's votes, or women pressed male members of the legislature with a strong case for suffrage.

"My view, or my hope anyway, is that all those motivations might have played a part, but maybe they didn't need a whole lot of motivation," Hill observed. "Maybe it just seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time."

The 19th Amendment federally recognized women's right to vote in 1920, more than 50 years after the Wyoming territory did so. Wyoming has other claims to women's rights fame, including the country's first woman appointed to public office, first women jurors and first woman governor.


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