By Julia Tilton for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Missouri News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

With the 2024 presidential election less than three weeks away, Democrats and Republicans in rural areas are directing their focus beyond the top of the ticket and toward state and local-level offices. So-called “down-ballot” races feature candidates for state legislature, city council, local school boards, and even judges and police commissioners. These elected officials make decisions on issues in their community like education, housing services, public transportation, and healthcare. 

Thus far in 2024, 75% of these down-ballot elections were uncontested nationwide, meaning a candidate ran for office without opposition. This trend is common in rural America’s red districts, according to Contest Every Race, a group that tracks races where Democrats do not put up a nominee. The group said one reason Republicans run unopposed in red districts is because Democrats have historically felt their odds are so slim it’s simply not worth it to campaign.

However, this year’s presidential election has directed fresh attention to districts where down-ballot candidates have historically run unopposed.

Lauren Gepford, vice president and executive director of Contest Every Race, said down-ballot races are important for Democrats this year given how disengaged many voters are with politics.

“Politics isn’t just about whatever’s on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC, but it really is about the policies that affect your local life,” Gepford said. Contest Every Race told the Daily Yonder they are funding grassroots organizing partners in 292 rural counties this year as part of their rural grants program for Democrats to contest races in rural communities where Republicans would otherwise run unopposed.

Bill Greener is a Republican strategist based in North Carolina. In an interview with the Daily Yonder, he said this is an election where every vote – from rural to urban – matters. 

“This is an election of ‘leave no vote behind,’” Greener said. 

Looking at the top of the ticket, two vice presidential candidates claiming rural roots means both Democrats and Republicans are overtly vying for rural voters’ support in November. But for both parties, the strategy goes beyond campaigning for the White House. 

At the state level, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) has invested over $22 million across 21 states as of September 2024. Total investments from the RSLC top $34 million for the election cycle, and include distributions in swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the RSLC’s counterpart, told the Daily Yonder they have made $10 million in state-level investments this year. The investments have gone to the DLCC’s target states, which include (but aren’t exclusive to) swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. This comes after Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign announced it would transfer an additional $2.5 million to the DLCC as part of its strategy to support down-ballot candidates. 

For Republicans, Greener said these investments are aimed at earning more votes in rural areas. 

“Our money goes there – to rural areas – to drive up the margin,” Greener said.

The story in rural areas is more complicated for Democrats. Rural organizers in places like Missouri, said that funding for down-ballot races historically has not come from the national Democratic party.

Jessica Piper ran for state representative as a Democrat in Nottoway County, Missouri, in 2022. She lost after receiving 25% of the vote. Then she joined Blue Missouri, an organization that provides crowdfunding for under-funded Democratic nominees in some of the reddest and most rural districts in the state. These districts, according to Piper, have often been neglected by investment from the national Democratic party. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, she said.

“Don’t give us any money, don’t invest in us, and look what happens,” Piper said.

Democrats Build a Bench in Rural Areas

The strategy in Missouri is changing this year, Piper said. Money – to the tune of $100,000 – has come in from the Democratic National Committee. 

“It's going to take a while before we see the fruits of our labor,” Piper said. “We know it's a long game, but we know it's worth playing.” 

Other Democratic rural organizers hold a similar sentiment to Piper’s, regardless of whether they have also received national party funding this year.

In upstate New York, Paolo Cremidis runs the Outrun Coalition, a grassroots group of 523 local Democratic elected officials from across rural America. Cremidis, the coalition’s executive director, said each official also brings a diverse identity not often represented in politics, including women, immigrants, young people, Latinos, Indigenous people, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“We need to delve into this diversity, because if we don’t, we are not going to have a candidate base or bench going into the future,” Cremidis said. Much like building a team of players, Cremidis and other rural organizers are looking to field a group of candidates they can train and then tap to run in future races. 

Building a bench of Democratic candidates in rural areas is a part of what Piper called a “long game” for Democrats. Gepford said Contest Every Race has similar goals with its recruitment efforts, which focus on races at the local and state level. 

Republicans Look Beyond Rural

As Republicans outspend Democrats on down-ballot races by more than 2 to 1, they are looking beyond rural America to pick up voters.

This is part of the national strategy, said Nicholas Jacobs, a professor of political science at Colby College and author of The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America. 

Jacobs said former President Donald Trump needs to win in more districts than he did in 2020 in order to win the presidency. For the Republican candidate, Jacobs said there are more votes to be won in the suburbs.

“Even if you start to lose a little bit in rural areas, if you can pick up in suburban areas, then you do just that,” Jacobs said. 

Greener said turnout can actually be a challenge for Republicans in rural areas.

“There are a whole lot of people that don’t turn out and vote in rural America,” Greener said. For elected offices down the ballot, community turnout decides the fate of local candidates.

Additionally, Jacobs said local candidates are not immune to the hyper-polarization and partisanship happening on the national scale this election cycle

“It is becoming harder and harder for candidates running down-ballot to escape the nationalized images of the party,” Jacobs said. 

Some Democrats, though, have maintained a degree of separation. Gepford said this is the “reverse coattails” effect. 

“Our [Democratic] candidates down-ballot will outperform the presidential [race], because they’re more likable in the area than the presidential candidate is,” Gepford said. Contest Every Race is focused on identifying reverse coattails in rural counties, and particularly in swing states, this year.

That is, if rural Americans vote. Even as vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz bring up their connections to small-town America while on the campaign trail – the word “rural” was used multiple times during the vice presidential debate, after no mention at all during the presidential debate – rural strategists and organizers from both parties said it remains to be seen how community members will cast their support this year, if at all. 

In some rural areas, Jacobs said local candidates could push people to cast ballots more than anything else. 

“Sometimes local candidates’ ground games, especially for state legislative office, do actually have an important bearing on who turns out, so it’ll be interesting to see,” Jacobs said.


Julia Tilton wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.

Wisconsinites overwhelmingly voted 'yes' on a record number of school funding measures, according to a new Wisconsin Policy Forum study. The appeals essentially asked voters to increase their own property taxes to fund school operations across the state. Voters favored a record number 169 referendums, authorizing a record total of $4.4 billion in new funding for 145 school districts.

Denise Gaumer Hutchison, Northwest regional organizer with the Wisconsin Public Education Network, said districts are being forced to take their needs to the ballot box to fund gaps between prioritizing students and overdue bills.

"The first responsibility of our public schools across the state is to educate children and to take care of the kids and the families they serve, every single day," she said. "So, that means any available funds that public schools have they put toward educating children. And so, if that means a boiler has to be patched rather than replaced, that's what they're going to do."

Almost half of the state's 421 school districts passed a referendum in April or November. Hutchison blames the state for not adequately funding school priorities, from building maintenance, to student mental-health services. The state superintendent announced last week the proposed 2025-27 budget would include $4 billion more in spending for public schools.

Despite 78% of the ballot measures passing, Hutchson said the districts where voters turned them down are in dire need of support to keep their doors open. Regardless of whether taxpayers have children in public schools, she says, the focus should be on providing every Wisconsin student with a quality education.

"I want their experience in public schools to be as awesome as my 25 and 26-year-old's were. I want them to get to be able to participate in sports, in theater, in drama and DECA, and learn about the history of our state and our country, and think about what our state and our country can be," she continued.

The study found factors like inflation outpacing the state allocated per-student revenue limits, the loss of pandemic aid and staff competition in a tight labor market are all factors that contributed to the record number of referendums.


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The presidential vote was close in Nevada and with the results in, local organizations leaning more progressive believe the re-election of Donald Trump could put much of the progress made in the Silver State in jeopardy.

Shelbie Swartz, executive director of Battle Born Progress, said Nevadans should take Trump's campaign promises seriously. She called on leaders in Carson City and in Congress to "stand up for their constituents," whom she argued a Trump administration could target, from immigrants to people who identify as transgender.

"If your values change based on polling, if your willingness to fight for the dignity of all Nevadans does not extend to our transgender siblings, then those are not values," Swartz contended. "They're talking points drafted in pencil."

Swartz stressed she has faith in the Nevada Legislature to pass bills to uphold and protect the rights of Nevadans but added the biggest challenge will be seeing what can make it across Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's desk. Last year, Lombardo, who endorsed Donald Trump, vetoed a record 75 bills passed by the Legislature's Democratic majority.

Trump campaigned on the idea of mass deportations and has doubled down on the threat since his win.

Leo Murrieta, executive director of the group Make the Road Action Nevada, said it is time for leaders who are ready to move beyond what he calls "fear-based policies," to advocate instead for immigration reform, including clearer, earned pathways to citizenship.

"It is time for leaders to see our community as an integral part of this country's fabric, not just a political talking point," Murrieta argued. "We are standing united with many other groups ready to resist any of the policies and any of the other threats that we're certainly going to face."

A new report from the American Immigration Council found a one-time mass deportation operation would cost the United States at least $315 billion to remove more than 13 million people.

California good governance experts are warning the expansion of presidential power under a second Trump administration could cast aside expertise and the public good to further purely political aims.

Over the past week, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated multiple candidates known more for their personal support for him than for relevant expertise.

Bill Resh, associate professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, said Trump appears to be following the blueprint set by Project 2025.

"Project 2025 puts into place principles such as loyalty, first and foremost, to the President as a criterion for placement into these agencies, and often with the intention of undermining those missions."

Supporters of President-elect Trump say voters have given him a mandate to govern as he sees fit. So far, he has nominated people strongly aligned with the oil industry to run the U.S. Interior Department and be Energy Secretary. He has nominated a climate change skeptic to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a television host with no executive experience as Defense Secretary, an election denier for Attorney General and a vaccine skeptic to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Resh noted Trump has already suggested using recess appointments to avoid what could be bruising confirmation hearings for some of his nominees.

"His stars are aligned to consolidate executive power and bring what used to be either quasi- or fully independent agencies, that were not subject to political whims, to bring those agencies to heel toward his policy preferences," Resh contended.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court found presidents cannot be prosecuted for most actions in office. And come January, both houses of Congress will be controlled by allies of President-elect Trump.