Democrats target working-class voters in Iowa and Montana
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, political reporter Stephen Fowler, and rural affairs correspondent Kirk Siegler.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Stephen Fowler. I cover politics. |
| 0:10.9 | And NPR's Kirk Siggler is also here with us. Hi, Kirk. Hello, guys. Thanks for being here. So today on the show, Democrats need to win back rural and working class voters if they want to have a shot at retaking Congress this November. |
| 0:23.5 | So today, we're going to talk about two states that have primaries tomorrow where they're trying to do that, Iowa and Montana. |
| 0:29.9 | So let's start with Iowa, Stephen, where you were just on a reporting trip reporting from a congressional district there. |
| 0:35.4 | Talk to me about the pitch that Democrats are making. |
| 0:37.6 | Miles, it's kind of this two-pronged approach here. Obviously, the national political environment is not |
| 0:43.8 | great for Republicans. There's a lot of dissatisfaction with Trump administration policies that are |
| 0:50.8 | especially salient in Iowa, talking about things like tariffs and the war in Iran that's led to high fertilizer prices for farmers. |
| 0:59.2 | But really the strategy they're also doing is tying it to Republican control at the state and local level. |
| 1:07.4 | I went to the Iowa First Congressional District Convention in May and talked to Iowa Democratic |
| 1:14.5 | Party chair Rita Hart, and she said that their strategy was telling voters, look, Republicans have |
| 1:21.6 | been in charge of things. It's not great nationally. It's not great locally. You may not love |
| 1:27.1 | Democrats per se, but why don't you give |
| 1:30.2 | us a chance? Well, Kirk, you cover the West for NPR. You were in Montana reporting on the politics |
| 1:36.4 | there. How is all of this shaping up there? I think it's pretty similar. Montana is a state that was |
| 1:42.2 | famous for split ticket voting, even if purple at some races. |
| 1:47.2 | Up until recently, when Trump has really got a hold on things and his popularity is really high. |
| 1:52.5 | So you're seeing Democrats talk about the tariffs on wheat farmers in the Pacific Northwest that's hitting wheat farmers really high who are seeing longstanding |
| 2:02.2 | trade relationships jeopardized. In some cases, canceled. You're also seeing Democrats talk a lot |
| 2:08.3 | about public lands and the Trump administration's push to do more logging and some people |
| 2:13.2 | within the Trump administration pushing to sell off some public lands. And they're focused on |
| 2:18.3 | affordability too, I think. You know, that's the national buzzword. But Montana's very expensive, |
... |
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