Rural Democrats' advice for their candidates to 'just show up' in rural areas could work this time, giving them Senate

For more than a decade, as Republicans got more of the rural vote, rural Democrats have told their urban counterparts that there are still important votes to be won outside metropolitan areas, if only Democratic candidates would "just show up" instead of writing off rural voters. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post starts his latest column with that point, then looks at Senate races in three states that President Trump "carried handily in 2016" to show that the advice that may have found its time.

He starts with South Carolina, where Black Democrat Jamie Harrison is "in striking distance" of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in part, Harrison says, because the descendants of African Americans who moved north are moving south.

In Montana, rural voters are appreciative of the expansion of Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by Gov. Steve Bullock, who is challenging Republican Sen. Steve Daines. Health care is the main issue at town halls in Iowa, which also expanded Medicaid, says Democrat Theresa Greenfield, who is narrowly favored to unseat Republican Sen. Joanie Ernst.

"All three point to how rural America is changing in ways that are compatible with practical progressive politics, and how disappointment with Republican policies — particularly on health care, taxes and Social Security — is pushing many rural voters to reconsider their GOP loyalties," Dionne writes. Because every state has two senators, creating a rural bias, "For Democrats and progressives, the success of candidates such as Harrison, Greenfield and Bullock could spell the difference between real power in the Senate and either fragile control or no control at all."