How do candidates talk about rural issues and real communities?

How do candidates talk about rural communities?

I think it's generally an afterthought. They don't. I'm peanuts to them. I don't think they really relate.

They know what counties, what states, what it takes to win. They care more about the electoral college than they do about us.

I think cities win elections. I don't think we mean anything.

Do we? We spent the Vice Presidential debate on Tuesday, with the group of voters in Fairbow, Minnesota, and there's a reason we were there.

This year, both parties are trying to tell a story about the importance of rural voters.

After decades of Democrats losing support among voters in rural America,

Kamala Harris appointed Minnesota Governor Tim Walls as her running mate.

That, along with Trump's selection of Senator J.D. Vance of Hill Billy Elegy fame,

kicked off a kind of battle over the story of rural America, as told through the two vice presidential candidates.

With Walls, a former high school football coach who grew up in a tiny Nebraska town,

bringing folksiness to the national stage.

Just to pose against Vance is harder, angrier, anti-elite outrage on behalf of a rural

America that says it's been left behind.

So ahead of Tuesday's debate, we went to Walls' former congressional district,

a district he once turned blue, and which is now held by a Republican. Mr.

He once turned blue, and which is now held by a Republican, to see how the two messages were

landing.

How have Republicans grown their rural advantage to historic levels and can Democrats do enough to remain

competitive in 2024. But first I wanted to talk to someone about how we got here.

From the New York Times, I'm a Sted Herndon.

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