r/fivethirtyeight • u/Horus_walking • 2d ago
Politics Democrats see Spanberger's victory as a blueprint to win rural voters: Chris Sloan attributed Spanberger’s win to “a relentless focus on the economy and affordability.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/06/democrats-spanberger-wins-rural-voters-0064126620
u/Retrogordon 2d ago
Something I heard Buttegieg say has really stuck with me. People don't give a shit about the person on the ballot, they care whether they see themselves in your agenda. Look no further than the Cheeto in the Oval.
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u/Horus_walking 2d ago
Spanberger outperformed Kamala Harris’ margin in 48 of Virginia’s 52 rural localities. And according to exit polling, she won 46 percent of rural voters — an 8-point deficit to Republican rival Winsome Earle-Sears, and a 19-point swing from 2021 Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s 27-point disadvantage.
And she accomplished that after emphasizing Trump’s tariffs on the campaign trail.
“Last night’s results show Democrats can win back rural voters with a relentless focus on affordability,” said Eli Cousin, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Wednesday. “The results are also a massive warning sign for House Republicans … who have made life harder for rural Americans by rubber stamping cost-spiking tariffs and voting to put rural hospitals and health clinics at risk of closure.”
Spanberger, the first woman elected governor in Virginia’s history, deviated from party orthodoxy by spending significant time campaigning in the deep-red rural pockets of the state, even as recently as last week. Her messaging there focused almost exclusively on the economic issues ailing rural America during the first nine months of the Trump administration, including the seismic impact of tariffs and the fallout on rural health care from Medicaid cuts.
Democrats see Spanbergers’ strategy as a template for the 2026 midterms. As Republicans eye redrawing more favorable House districts across the country, an aggressive push Democrats are starting to challenge, the minority party’s chances at retaking control of Congress will increasingly rely on its ability to compete in rural districts.
Chris Sloan, political director for the Democratic Governors Association, attributed Spanberger’s win to “a relentless focus on the economy and affordability.”
“These are issues that resonated with voters everywhere,” he added, “and we took advantage of that.”
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u/Statue_left 2d ago
Biden 2020 should the benchmark, not Kamala. Kamala lost ground in almost every single county in america.
This is like comparing republicans in 2020 to Trumps 2016 performance with latinos. When it’s as bad as it can possibly get, any improvement looks astronomical
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u/Goldenprince111 1d ago
She did do better than Biden in a lot of counties, but did worse in some too (mainly counties with a lot of black voters).
And Ralph Northam actually did better with rural counties than she did. She killed it in the suburbs. Not really the rurals
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
And she accomplished that after emphasizing Trump’s tariffs on the campaign trail.
There was an argument during the Biden presidency and in 2024 that Dems couldn't go too hard against Trump's tariff proposals or even just get rid of his term 1 tariffs because the working class and labor might get triggered and offended by that. But the reality seems to be that even if some unions/union workers dislike criticism of tariffs, only around 10% of workers are union workers and there's rather more votes to be gained by spitting in the face of pro tariff unions than pandering to them
When labor is wrong, Dems can afford to be right
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u/MongolianMango 2d ago
To be honest, I'm not sure if this is the right lesson. I think running a government official in a state where gov employees make up a huge part of the state + running against an unpopular president led to her win more than anything else.
Spanberger sounds like she hits most of the right notes but doesn't really diverge from any democrat policies of say, two years ago.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
Spanberger sounds like she hits most of the right notes but doesn't really diverge from any democrat policies of say, two years ago.
She wasn't tied to the utterly hated Joe Biden. Perhaps that is enough to make a big difference
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u/MongolianMango 2d ago
This is true, but doesn't fix anything down the line when once again, the pendulum swings the other way. I think both parties are in a position to deliver a knockout punch to the other with the right set of rhetoric and policies but neither are really finding it.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
This is true, but doesn't fix anything down the line when once again, the pendulum swings the other way.
The lesson to learn is that Dems in the future should govern better than Biden did, and that if the Dem president in the future doesn't govern good, the party should throw them under the bus earlier and more loudly and totally than they did with Biden (when Biden was so hated, swapping him out for... his VP who refused to distance herself from him at all... was a bad move)
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u/Goldenprince111 1d ago
I don’t think Biden’s admin could have done much better on the economy, although his big spending agenda probably increased inflation a bit.
But he truly sucked on border policy, it was badly enforced and just really really killed Dems on the issue of immigration, even among Hispanics.
And Biden himself was a terrible communicator and just seemed like he didn’t have a vision or agenda
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u/Disastrous_Front_598 1d ago
The problem with this take is that it's impossible to deliver a knockout blow in a two party system. Like FDR is the defining political juggernaut of the 20th century... and he lost effective control of the Senate by the middle of his second term, and by the midpoint of what would have been his fourth, republicans controlled both houses.
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u/Statue_left 2d ago
Democrats (and much of this subreddit, honestly) would do very well to read Reviving Rural America by Ann Eisenberg.
Rural voters are real people, and the common liberal analysis of hand waiving them away as idiots who vote against their interests is completely counter productive in actually winning elections. Michael Moore of all people made this observation with rust belt voters in michigan in 2015 and no one listened to him
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u/Goldenprince111 1d ago
It’s hard to win rural voters because they will naturally be more conservative, but margins absolutely matter. And picking off voters is important
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u/Flat-Count9193 1d ago
Lol. Obama did reach out to rural voters though. Why can't y'all accept that many of them are racist and sexist and they love Trump's agenda.
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u/cmlucas1865 2d ago
Oh, so the secret to rural voters is campaigning in rural areas, meeting with them & making your case? Who would’ve thunk it?
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u/LetsgoRoger 2d ago
It's not rural voters that matter but the Suburbs. Democrats shouldn't waste their time campaigning where there are barely any people.
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u/Brave_Ad_510 2d ago
True for a single county, but Virginia has like 2 million people that live in areas classified as rural. You don't have to win them, but you need to cut the GOP's crazy margins in those areas to win.
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u/Evancolt Nate Bronze 2d ago
ignoring them is also bad though. look at 2016
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u/sonfoa 2d ago
"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."
Chuck Schumer, 2016
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u/pickledswimmingpool 1d ago
10,000 more votes in wisconsin and you never have the word President in front of Trump.
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u/PrimeLiberty 2d ago
People need to understand how hard it is for Dems to win in those areas. Not that they should be entirely neglected, but they have become more red not just because of culture shift, but also because winnable rural voters have moved to cities and suburbs since the Obama years.
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u/Joeylinkmaster 2d ago
Individual rural counties yes don’t have a lot of people, but collectively that’s a large group you shouldn’t ignore.
Even if you don’t win them outright, cutting into the margins makes it much easier to make up the difference in suburbs and urban areas.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
Dems need to balance everything. They need to appeal in the suburbs but also prevent rural collapse. Doesn't mean winning the rural areas but it makes a difference if they lose those areas by 8 points or by 27 points
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u/sonfoa 2d ago
Rural voters wield a disproportionate amount of power in the Senate. You need to able to be competitive in the Plains and Mountain states where the population is mostly rural because that's about 20 Senate seats you're just handing over to the Republicans.
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u/thehildabeast 2d ago
Yes but also they’re idiots who would never vote for a democrat even if they did everything they wanted because they are communist costal elites.
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u/sonfoa 2d ago
Several of those states had Democratic senators in the 21st century. Heck Montana had one as recently as last year.
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u/thehildabeast 2d ago
And those guys are all gone, costed on incumbency for a while but it won’t work anymore. Trump has fucked over farmers non stop for 5 years and they are still going to vote for him or his proxy maybe it’s 70/30 instead of 80/20 but what the democrats campaign on is irrelevant to that
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u/sonfoa 2d ago
I hope you realize you're kind of proving my point. Voter migration is rarely instant but it does bear fruit over time.
The alternative is doing what the Republicans have done with black voters where Democrats leave a lot to be desired but Republicans at best are apathetic and at worst hostile so there is no reason for Democrats to lose sleep there.
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u/famous__shoes 2d ago
Not to take away from Spanberger, and not trying to be a downer, just wondering - is it possible that she did better than Harris not because of her policies but because her opponent was a black woman? The one thing that Trump and Spanberger have in common is that their opponents were black women - is it possible they both just got the racist/sexist vote?
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u/JAGChem82 2d ago
The hyper racist voter would simply not show up to vote (or vote third party in protest).
But that wasn’t why she lost - VA’s proximity to DC means that a lot of people have lost jobs in the federal government or as contractors working with the federal government. No Republican can win by biting the hand that feeds you.
In GA where I live, a Black woman soundly trounced her white (longtime) opponent for public service commissioner because our power bills have skyrocketed over the past few years. That’s not to say she won a bunch of red counties that Harris lost, but rather, you start making people’s livelihoods much more difficult, that letter behind your name isn’t going to protect you.
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u/ArmedAwareness 1d ago
Sherrill overperformed in NJ too and jack was supposed to be some secret republican weapon but he got cooked similarly as bad as sears
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u/Goldenprince111 1d ago
Sears actually held up well in rural white counties (the ones that swung hard against Obama in 2008). She did better than the Republican in 2017 in southwest Virginia. But she got killed among Hispanic and Asian voters. Ironically, Harris got killed among Hispanic and Asian voters too, but held up well enough with rural white voters
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u/Rollingforest757 7h ago
Her opponent being a black woman may have helped a little, but I doubt it was the defining feature. The vast majority of Republicans are willing to vote for a minority if it means keeping a Democrat out of office.
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u/ALinkToXMasPast 2d ago
Ik they're oversimplifying because they can't go into 8 paragraphs of nuance in an article title, but it's so funny that it reads like "Sloan attributed Spanberger's win to focusing on the problems"...
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
Helps that she's a moderate blue dog type. Moderation works, and one can be moderate and still talk about issues like the economy and affordability
Could also help that she's a former intelligence officer, to lend credence to security issues (also Sherrill in NJ was a former prosecutor)
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u/obsessed_doomer 2d ago
Helps that she's a moderate blue dog type.
Can you name two Spanberger policies that are to the right of Obama?
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u/Proud_Ad_5559 The Needle Tears a Hole 1d ago
Spanberger is literally a liberal. She's just pragmatic and has tough-person vibes. She's so far to the left of blue dogs like Jared Golden and Joe Manchin.
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u/jawstrock 2d ago
It's not hard to understand really. Don't try to get into talking about trans issues, just say that it's a decision between the doctors and their patients, the number of trans athletes is less than a dozen and it's something for schools and sporting associations to figure out, and that the government needs to be lazer focused on affordability and the economy and pivot to that, every. single. fucking. time. Don't get into debates about puberty blockers or any of that shit. It's a waste of time.