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What Would a Harris Presidency Mean for Rural America? [1]
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Date: 2024-07-24
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see? Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.
Hear reporter Claire Carlson narrate her column on Keep It Rural, a series from the Rural Remix podcast.
Imagine, for a moment, a world in which a former U.S. president is nearly assassinated, a Republican vice presidential nominee is announced, and the current U.S. president and presumptive Democratic nominee drops out of an election occurring not even four months from now, all in the span of roughly one week.
Oh, yeah! We don’t have to imagine, our reality really is this absurd.
I am still reeling from the past week, but of course, the news cycle races on so my journalist brain is already onto the next question – what does all this mean for rural America?
The most likely Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris (enough Democratic delegates say they will back her, according to an AP survey, to clinch the nomination), but the former Bay Area prosecutor doesn’t have much of a rural track record.
However, her association with President Joe Biden, who made large investments in rural America through the novel Rural Partners Network and laws like the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure and Investment in Jobs Act, and Chips & SCIENCE Act, could bode well for rural under a Harris administration.
As vice president, Harris was tasked with being a spokesperson for reproductive rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Earlier this year, she visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, to see how the Midwest has been affected by abortion bans. The issue is likely to be a central talking point in her campaign if and when she’s officially declared the Democratic nominee.
Harris’ other focus as VP has been on immigration. Since 2021, she’s helped secure private sector investments from companies like Nestle and Target to create local jobs in Central America in order to decrease migration into the U.S. Whether this actually worked is debatable: the number of undocumented folks hailing from nearly every region of the world who moved to the U.S. grew by half a million people between 2021 and 2022, according to Pew Research Center data.
Lastly, Harris has worked to codify voting rights protections. She was one of the biggest proponents of the now-stalled Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act that would have expanded voter registration and access, and established Election Day as a federal holiday.
All three of these focus areas intersect with rural interests. Abortion access in rural communities is limited because of the location of abortion clinics (and as clinics have been shut down in more red states, rural folks have had to travel even farther). Medication abortion by mail is another option for rural folks, but many states have restricted access to medication abortion and one state – Arizona – has fully prevented its delivery by mail.
Immigration has also proved to be a hot button topic, with a Gallup poll from early this year showing it as a top issue for voters. Immigration is likely to be front of mind for folks living in the rural border regions of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Voting rights protections also have big implications for rural America where voter turnout is the lowest, in part because of barriers like mail-in ballot restrictions and fewer in-person polling locations.
Rural voters are likely to be an essential voting bloc this presidential election. A 2023 survey from the Center for Rural Strategies (publisher of the Daily Yonder) and Lake Research Partners suggested as many as 37% of rural voters could be swayed by either party.
Harris’ work as VP intersects with rural interests nicely. (In a Venn Diagram, perhaps?) Pair that with expanding the Biden administration’s work to invest in rural America, and she could make headway with some rural voters – if she chooses to pay attention to them.
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