Investigative journalists uncover public officials' racist or racially unbalanced actions in Alabama and Virginia

Two stories from the South illustrate the power of investigative local journalism to uncover questionable actions by public officials.

In Alabama, a Talladega police dog sent at least nine people to the hospital in a year spanning the summer of 2014 to 2015. A veteran police sergeant testified under oath that the police specifically wanted a dog that would attack Black residents, Challen Stephens reports for AL.com, in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

Brad Zinn of the Staunton News Leader in Virginia contrasted how two magistrates treated two defendants: a young Black man reportedly armed with a skateboard, and a middle-aged white man allegedly armed with two rifles and a handgun. Neither had a prior criminal record, 

Devin Turner, 22, was arrested after throwing his skateboard at a passing car. At his arraignment, one of the Augusta County magistrates ordered him held without bond at a nearby jail. He was eventually granted a $5,000 bond and released after spending the weekend in jail, Zinn reports.

Douglas Truslow, 57, aimed laser-sighted firearms at neighbors, including an elderly woman and a 5-year-old, and threatened to start shooting them. The sheriff's office and Charlottesville police responded. During the eight-hour standoff that followed, Truslow allegedly threatened to kill several officers. A different local magistrate gave him a $1,000 unsecured bond and he was immediately released. Truslow is the lone caregiver for his spouse, according to court records, Zinn reports.

When the News Leader asked the magistrate's office why the two suspects were treated so differently, Chief Magistrate Robyn Wilhelm said the magistrates stick to a rigid script when making bond decisions, and said neither the police nor the commonwealth attorney's office spoke up with concerns about either Truslow or Turner's bonds. Zinn reports.

Wilhelm said she couldn't comment on ongoing cases but told Zinn: "We're dealing with humans, so oftentimes there could be imperfections ... Certain judges will find people guilty of one thing but another judge ... could find someone innocent."

As covid-19 patients fill larger hospitals, small hospitals must care for critically ill patients, and that's not for the best

The coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately hitting rural areas, but cases are still rising in many metropolitan areas. That means trouble for many small, rural hospitals. 

Hemphill County, Texas
(Wikipedia map)

In Hemphill County, Texas, pop. 3,807, seriously ill patients are usually transferred from Hemphill County Hospital to a larger, better-equipped hospital in Amarillo, Lubbock or Dallas. But these days, many of those hospitals are full largely because of covid-19, so critically ill patients must remain at HCH, which lacks the staffing and equipment to fully care for them, writes Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor and publisher of The Canadian Record in the county seat of Canadian (named for the Canadian River).

Hospital Chief of Staff Tony Cook said the hospital tells covid-19 patients: "We will do what we can do . . . but you will not get the standard of care you may need." He speculated that non-covid patients may have died, and will continue to do so, because the hospital was swamped with covid patients.

Hospital staff are doing what they can to prepare for the worsening pandemic. They've improvised an covod ward by draping off a hallway with plastic curtains. "They have supplemented two old ventilators with new ones, which they hope to be trained to use next week," Brown reports. "They have also ordered high-flow nasal oxygen for use in treating covid patients." The hospital has also acquired four temporary nurses to provide relief to the exhausted staff. 

"I just don't think people understand how bad it really is," Cook told Brown. "This is a critical situation. . . . People are going to die. That is the bottom line."

Brown wonders why people don't understand the seriousness of the situation by now: "Maybe all they need to do is imagine being wheeled on a gurney through those plastic curtains into the improvised covid unit at Hemphill County Hospital, because there's nowhere else to go to get the care they need."

Food insecurity worse in rural America during pandemic

Projected rates of food insecurity in 2020 (Feeding America map; click the image to enlarge it.)

"Rural areas make up a disproportionate share of the counties where residents have high levels of food insecurity, according to a national hunger-relief organization," Liz Carey reports for The Daily Yonder. "Research from Feeding America shows that while 63% of the counties in the U.S. are rural, 87% of those counties had the highest rates of overall food insecurity."

The trend was improving in 2019, but it's getting worse again during the pandemic because of unique challenges rural areas face. "These challenges include an increased likelihood of food deserts with the nearest food pantry or food bank potentially hours away, job opportunities that are more concentrated in low-wage industries, and higher rates of unemployment and underemployment," said the report.

Rural voters appear to have stopped the 'blue wave' in 2020 election, though the final numbers are unclear

"The 2018 mid-term election saw a blue wave that strengthened Democratic control of the House. Despite pollster speculation that the wave would continue into 2020, the scenario did not play out, with the GOP holding some key, targeted Senate races and making gains in the House," John Herath reports for AgWeb.

It's unclear how much rural voters helped President Trump and down-ticket Republicans, but "an exit poll by Edison Research for the National Election Pool reported that 54 percent of small-city or rural residents voted for Trump while urban and suburban voters favored Democrat Joe Biden," Chuck Abbott reports for Successful Farming. But Trump appeared to have coattails in other races.

"Democrats were not able to hold on," Karla Thieman of The Russell Group, a bipartisan lobbying and consulting firm focused on food and agriculture, told Herath. "The 2018 wave that they were brought in on did not last this time. And the reason they weren't able to get re-elected is in large part, at least based on the data that I've seen, the number of rural voters who turned out for Donald Trump this time."

Thieman served as chief of staff to Deputy Agriculture Secretary Krysta Harden under President Obama, and served as senior staff in the Senate Agriculture Committee for more than five years.

Though the final vote tallies aren't in yet in several states, rural and small-town voters proved decisive for President Trump in Ohio and led to House Agriculture chair Collin Peterson's defeat in Minnesota. 

Tune in on Nov. 18 for rural health chat on Twitter, just ahead of National Rural Health Day

On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the Rural Health Information Hub and the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health will co-host a Twitter chat with health experts from across the nation talking about social determinants of health in rural America. Social determinants of health are factors beyond medical care that affect health and well-being, such as education, discrimination, poverty, and more.

The Twitter chat will begin at 1 p.m. ET and will last about an hour. It's being held in conjunction with National Rural Health Day, which is Thursday, Nov. 19. 

The chat will use the hashtags #RuralHealthChat and #PowerofRural. Click here to register for the chat or for more information, including a list of participating guests and their Twitter handles. 

Strong rural support for Trump helped carry Ohio, led to defeat of House Agriculture chair Collin Peterson in Minn.

Though not all the election results are in, it seems clear that President Trump enjoyed broad rural support, sometimes enough to prove decisive in contentious races. 

Votes from small cities and rural areas helped Trump carry Ohio. He "won every category of county except the urban core counties of major- and medium-sized metropolitan areas, just as he did in 2016. He made up losses in core counties in large- and medium-sized metros with strong support in suburbs of those urban areas.Tim Marema and Tim Murphy report for The Daily Yonder. "His advantage of more than 2 to 1 with voters in small metros (less than 250,000 residents) and rural areas put him over the top. In small metros and rural areas, Trump ran up a 560,000-vote lead, and that margin gave him statewide lead of about 470,000 votes."

Another sign of how Trump has made rural America more Republican: House Agriculture Committee chair Collin Peterson, a Blue Dog Democrat from Minnesota, lost his seat after three decades in the House. The winner, Michelle Fischbach, is "a well-financed Republican and former Minnesota lieutenant governor endorsed by President Trump," Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network. The result wasn't entirely unexpected; Peterson was said to be the most vulnerable incumbent in the House before the election, since his district is strongly conservative. But at a time when the top of the ticket increasingly drives voter choices, Trump probably made the difference.

It's unclear as of publication time whether Trump's rural edge will help him carry the battleground states that helped win him the election in 2016. By late Tuesday evening, "it became clear the high numbers of mail-in ballots in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- which collectively account for 46 electoral votes -- would likely decide the election. Trump carried those three states by close margins in 2016 predominately because of strong support in rural counties," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "Among some states Democrats hoped to flip, Trump maintained strong support among rural county totals in general, which helped him hold on to Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas despite polls suggesting Democrats could take those states. Georgia and North Carolina were both leaning Trump's direction early Wednesday morning, but neither state had declared a winner."

Most rural counties lost jobs from Sept. 2019 to Sept. 2020, but metro counties did worse; see county-level data

Map shows percentage change of employment rate from September 2019 to September 2020, compared to the national average of 6.47% loss during the 12-month period. Daily Yonder map; click here for the interactive version.

Most U.S. counties had fewer people working in September 2020 than in September 2019, but rural counties lost a smaller percentage of jobs than the largest metropolitan counties, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics employment figures. That's likely because jobs in many rural areas, especially those that rely on agriculture instead of tourism, are somewhat insulated from nationwide employment trends. 

"In fact, rural counties are slowly adding jobs as the country’s major metro areas continue to struggle," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder. "Rural counties lost a little over 4% of the jobs they had in September 2019. In contrast, the metropolitan counties that contain the urban centers of cities of a million or more people have lost nearly 8% of the jobs they had a year ago. The nation as a whole lost 6.5% jobs over these 12 months."

In September 2019, the average unemployment rate in major metropolitan areas was at or below 3.5%, slightly lower than in rural counties. But in September 2020, the unemployment rate in rural counties was 6%, compared to 9.7% in the central counties of the largest cities, Bishop reports. Click here for more analysis, including an interactive map with the latest county-level data.

Difference in rural and urban mortality rates will be topic of Nov. 16 webinar

On Monday, Nov. 16, the Rural Health Information Hub will host a webinar with a panel of experts discussing National Center for Health Statistics research on rural-urban differences in mortality, including suicide, alcohol-related deaths, motor vehicle traffic deaths, and drug overdose deaths. the webinar will also feature insights from a program to reduce substance-use mortality in rural Pennsylvania.

The webinar will begin at 3 p.m. ET and will last about an hour. Admission is free, but registration is required. If you're unable to attend, a recording will be made available afterward. Click here for more information, including a list of featured speakers.

Upcoming reapportionment and redistricting make statehouse races even more important this year

The nation's attention is focused largely on the presidential and Senate races, but more than 5,000 state legislative races are arguably as important, collectively, Sabrina Tavernise writes for The New York Times. For one thing, this is a census year. In most states, that means that whoever wins control of a state's legislature in this election will be in charge of "redrawing state and national electoral maps next year, an exercise that can give one political party a deep and enduring advantage in lawmaking for years." 

After their electoral gains in 2010, Republicans used their power in statehouses to disproportionately empower rural voters in redistricting. Before legislatures redistrict, the census will determine how many seats in the U.S. House each state will get.

Tavernise notes that state legislatures will also decide critical issues relating to abortion, guns, police funding and accountability, schools, health care, and the pandemic.

Pandemic highlights need for better rural broadband

"Talk about pouring salt into an open wound. Even prior to covid-19, everyone knew the state of rural broadband was not good. What this pandemic did was not only expose how deep the digital divide truly is between rural residents and their city cousins but also widened it by a country mile," Steve Cubbage writes for AgWeb. Cubbage is a consultant who helps farmers implement tech solutions. "As business, school and nearly all aspects of daily life for most Americans went virtual and online, this shift put an unbelievable amount of strain on the communication infrastructure that we depend on to function as a modern society. Rural areas were much less prepared for this accelerated warp-speed digital transformation."

Cubbage shares some blunt illustrating numbers:

• Americans relied way more on broadband in 2020: Digital conference software Zoom's parent company saw a nearly 600% increase in its stock in 2020, online gaming activity increased nearly 115%, and Netflix usage jumped 40% during the pandemic, all of which require broadband.
• 60% of farmers say they don't have enough internet connectivity to run their business, and more than 50% said their farms can't implement the latest agricultural technology without better broadband. 
• According to the most conservative estimates, at least 21.3 million Americans, or 6.5% of the population, lacks broadband access. However, that's according to the Federal Communications Commission's maps, which are widely acknowledged to be faulty. Third-party research indicates the real numbers are at least twice as high.
• The new 5G network is supposed to operate 20 times faster than the current 4G LTE network, but 5G requires more relay stations and is much more expensive to implement. That could be a problem in cash-strapped rural areas.
• The federal government spent $47.3 billion on rural broadband improvement programs between 2009 and 2017, but rural areas still lag substantially in connectivity. 

Cubbage expresses doubt that the federal government is spending its money wisely on rural broadband, insinuating that major telecoms companies have not delivered on their contracts. 

Emboldened right-wing militias, with many rural adherents, are an increasing threat, Dept. of Homeland Security says

Emboldened far-right militias, many dominated by rural residents and some affiliated with white supremacy groups, are increasingly threatening racial-justice protests, intimidating voters and more.

"Throughout the West and beyond, in a summer marked by protests seeking racial justice, armed vigilantes also have shown up at Black Lives Matter events in small towns and big cities alike. Their presence in some places has the tacit support of law enforcement or even local elected officials," Erika Bolstad reports for Stateline. "Now, experts who monitor right-wing vigilantes and white nationalist organizations are on even higher alert for the possibility of violence at political rallies. They also fear vigilantes or armed groups might show up at ballot drop-off locations and outside of Nov. 3 polling places to intimidate voters and increase paramilitary activity afterward if election results are disputed or seen as illegitimate."

During a presidential debate, President Trump urged supporters to "go into the polls and watch very carefully" and told white nationalist group the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," which their leader interpreted as a call to intimidate voters, according to his social media posts, Stateline reports.

Election officials across the nation have stepped up training and strengthened ties with local law enforcement to prepare for possible violence or intimidation. Still, threats have persisted. Voter intimidation has been reported in several rural areas in Oregon, from individuals who were armed or blocking ballot dropboxes with vehicles, Lizzy Acker reports for The Oregonian. And in Georgia, a rally was canceled after threats of a large militia presence.

However, sometimes militias have tacit or explicit support from local officials. In Virginia, a few rural counties have officially recognized local militias as organizations that enhance public safety and security, Gregory Schneider reports for The Washington Post.

Federal authorities are paying attention, especially to militias affiliated with white supremacist ideology. "White supremacists represent the top and most lethal domestic terror threat to Americans, the Department of Homeland Security said Oct. 6, when it released its first-ever Homeland Threat Assessment," Bolstad reports.

It is easier for paramilitary groups to form and act in the U.S. than in other countries because of easier access to firearms, writes Vasabjit Banerjee for policy magazine Just Security. Banerjee, a political science professor at Mississippi State University, studies insurgencies in developing nations. The increase in militias and other paramilitary groups in the U.S. is cause for concern, he writes. 

Mask-mandate decision, punted to local Iowa officials by governor, causes political upheaval in at least one county

Dubuque County, Iowa (Wikipedia map)

The question of whether to wear masks in public has unexpectedly become a political issue in one Iowa county, and likely in others across the country, Dan Diamond reports for Politico.

The issue was politicized from the beginning, after President Trump expressed disdain for masking early on in the pandemic, even after leading scientists supported it, Diamond notes. In June, Vice President Mike Pence said each state could decide its masking policy. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, refused to enforce a statewide policy, saying it was a "feel-good" measure that wouldn't save lives.

That left major debates on pandemic response with county and small-town officials, "who have little or no formal health training, may be working as volunteers or part-time and admit to scrounging the internet as they try to shape what experts portray as life-and-death choices," Diamond reports.

In Dubuque County, the all-volunteer health board has been urging the county supervisors to mandate masks since early August. Since then, the county's coronavirus infections have more than tripled and deaths have more than doubled, Diamond reports. But two of the three supervisors have sided with Wayne Kenniker, a local utility owner and small-town mayor who opposes such a mandate.

Now more than a dozen small-town mayors in the county "have banded together to cast doubt on the legal authority of a mask mandate and the health board's own procedures," Diamond reports. In an Aug. 26 letter to the supervisors, the mayors wrote that a mask mandate "would demonstrate a use of questionable authority and it would undermine the core values that define rural Iowa."

The masking debate "has animated the politics of a state that was thought to be in the bag for President Donald Trump but now appears to be a seesaw battle, with Trump making a last-minute visit to Dubuque on Sunday," Diamond reports. Kenniker "worried that a mask mandate would eventually lead to a vaccine mandate too. He also cast doubt on the county's official covid-19 data, claiming the figures were inflated to inspire fear and even make Trump look bad."

Rural counties break virus-case record for 6th straight week

New coronavirus infections by county, Oct. 25-31
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

The coronavirus pandemic "continued its rapid spread in rural America last week, setting a record for new infections for the sixth consecutive week and placing three out of every four rural counties on the red-zone list," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. New infections reached 110,130 for the week of Sunday to Saturday, October 25-31, an increase of 16% from the previous week. An additional 154 rural counties were added to the red-zone list last week, bringing the total to record high of 1,502."

The White House Coronavirus Task Force defines red-zone counties as those with at least 100 new infections per 100,000 people in a week.

"October has been the worst month so far for the spread of covid-19 in rural counties," Murphy and Marema report. "Covid-related deaths totaled 5,950 in rural counties during the month, an increase of 30 percent from September. During the same period, deaths in medium and large metropolitan areas declined by 11%."

Coronavirus-related deaths fell slightly last week from 1,558 to 1,535. A disproportionate number of those deaths, and new infections, are rural. "Although about 14% of the U.S. population lives in nonmetropolitan counties (which is the definition of rural this story is using), 20.5% of the new cases and 24.3% of the new deaths occurred in rural areas," Murphy and Marema report.

Click here for more data and insights, including an interactive map showing the latest county-level data.

Amazon reportedly planning new service for rural deliveries, cutting out U.S. Postal Service, which needs its money

Amazon may be looking to handle its own deliveries to rural areas rather than relying on the U.S. Postal Service, Kim Lyons reports for The Verge. "The e-commerce behemoth would rely on shipping hubs in rural areas under a plan called 'wagon wheel,' a reference to Amazon’s hub-and-spoke supply chain. In Amazon’s terminology, a wagon wheel station provides support for smaller shipping facilities."

It's unclear when or where the program would be launched, "but Amazon executives said on the company’s third quarter earnings call last week that it expects to continue putting money into its shipping and delivery infrastructure for years to come," Lyons reports.

The Postal Service received $3.9 billion in revenue from Amazon in fiscal 2019 for delivering 1.54 billion Amazon packages. That's about 30 percent of Amazon's total volume, Lyons reports. Amazon is more likely to rely on USPS for rural deliveries than its own couriers, since such deliveries are more time-consuming and thus less profitable. 

Drug overdoses on the rise in rural America

Drug-overdose deaths increased during the first months of the pandemic, especially in rural areas, according to preliminary numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase may not be correlated with the pandemic, since overdose deaths have been on the rise since before the pandemic. 

"The U.S. had record-high drug overdose deaths in 2019, according to CDC data, with opioids involved in 2 out of every 3 drug-related deaths," Noah Fish reports for the Duluth News Tribune. "If the trend shown in the most recent CDC study continues, the country will set a new record for drug overdose deaths again this year.

The biggest increase in fatal overdoses happened in rural South Dakota, where drug-related fatalities increased by nearly 50 percent," Fish reports. "There were over 19,000 fatal overdoses in the U.S. from January through March of this year, according to CDC data, which is close to 3,000 more deaths than the same time frame last year."

Rural New Mexico county has picked every president since 1952; reporter spoke to locals to find out how they're leaning

Valencia County, N.M.
(Wikipedia map)

Valencia County, New Mexico, has an unusual claim to fame: it has the longest active streak of picking presidents in the nation's history. Valencia voters have correctly chosen the president in every election since 1952, a 68-year run, Tim Alberta reports for Politico.

Alberta visited Valencia and spoke to voters to see what makes it a bellwether. The county of 76,688 is mostly rural; its largest town and county seat, Los Lunas, has just over 14,000 residents. Valencia is a cultural melting pot of white, Hispanic, and Native American culture, and Alberta noted that voting preferences cut across racial and ethnic lines. 

Valencia Democrats and independents tend to be more conservative than in the rest of the U.S. One independent, Victor Lewis, said he voted for Obama twice, but increasingly felt that liberals looked down on his culture and now supports Trump. Almost all voters Alberta spoke to said they worried about climate change, but many said they felt that renewable-energy goals and environmental rules hurt the local economy and the environment, and some said they feared that Democrats would turn the U.S. into a communist or socialist country.

Valencia is showing signs of a rightward shift. "Registered Democrats used to outnumber registered Republicans here by a 2-to-1 ratio," Alberta reports. "But that gap has closed dramatically: Of the 48,824 total registered voters for this election, 18,918 are Democrats, 16,583 are Republicans and 9,353 are independents. (The small balance is made up of third-party registrants.)"

Republicans won all but one county office in 2016, though Democrats fared slightly better in the 2018 midterms. President Trump won 48% of the vote in Valencia in 2016, on par with how he did nationwide. But Hillary Clinton got 39%, nearly 10 points less than her share of the national vote. About 13% of Valencia voters went for a third-party candidate, Alberta reports.

The higher-than-average share of independent votes is unsurprising, said Valencia County clerk Peggy Carabajal; she thinks Valencia voters aren't as partisan as those in other places. "It’s kind of mind-boggling how many voters here have bounced back and forth between parties over the years," Carabajal told Alberta. "But I will say, this year seems much more polarized than it’s been in the past. It’s the pandemic, the economy, the protests—all of it.”

Valencia's not just a microcosm of the nation's votes, but of the neighbor-against-neighbor tensions that have increasingly roiled the U.S. "Whatever happens, it’s not going to be good," retired lineman Kenneth Tiger told Alberta. "I’ve already lost 30 friends in the past four years. It’s going to get worse. And I just can’t understand it. We’re not fighting a civil war over some great cause; we’re fighting a civil war over a man who has no principles and stands for nothing."

Based on his conversations with voters, Alberta predicts that Trump will carry Valencia County, but he also thinks Trump will lose the election and end the county's 68-year streak. "Maybe that means I didn’t talk to enough people. Maybe that means I didn’t go to the right places. But I think it probably means Valencia County, the most exceptional voting jurisdiction in America, a place that has resisted political tribalism for so long, is becoming like the rest of the country—predictable, polarized and loyally partisan," Alberta writes. "I hope I’m wrong. We need places that swing dramatically from one election to the next. We need voters who move frequently between parties. We need a country where fidelity to shared values trumps allegiance to partisan affiliation."

Counties that supported Trump most in 2016 are seeing higher coronavirus infection rates recently

Counties that voted by more than a 20-point margin for Donald Trump in 2016 "have a recent infection rate 75 percent higher than counties that voted by a landslide for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016," Tim Marema and Tim Murphy report for The Daily Yonder. "That could have an impact on the presidential election." Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says when polls control for party affiliation, people in places with surges in coronavirus cases are more likelier than elsewhere to say they intend to vote for Joe Biden.

Lake and Republican pollster Ed Goeas agreed in a Rural Assembly panel last week that Trump will win the majority of the rural vote. "But the margin is likely to be closer than the 2 to 1 gap he had in 2016," Murphy and Marema report. "Trump’s rural support has softened among women and senior citizens, primarily because of the pandemic and Trump’s leadership style, Lake and Goeas said." Click here for the full article with interactive charts. 

Wildfires threaten rural areas with expensive, lingering damage to water utilities

"When wildfires spread across California, they leave a cascade of water problems in their wake: Some communities have their drinking water poisoned by toxic substances. Others wrestle with ash and debris washed into reservoirs and lakes. And many living in remote stretches of the state struggle with accessing enough water to fight fires," Rachel Becker reports for Cal Matters. "Drinking water has been contaminated with hazardous chemicals after at least three California wildfires in recent years: in Santa Rosa after the Tubbs Fire in 2017, in Paradise after the Camp Fire in 2018 and now in parts of the San Lorenzo Valley burned by the CZU Lightning Complex Fires that began in August."

Fixing the damaged water systems can cost up to $150 million for a single small town, Becker reports.

Further complicating matters, "Towns and water agencies also are grappling with advice to give residents in fire-ravaged areas, who are confused by warnings that seem to continuously change about whether their water is safe," Becker reports. "In a state already plagued by water shortages, the problems in rural California are likely to happen again and again as climate change primes the West to burn."

Current drinking-water regulations can't handle the scope of California's problems, said one state official. “The Safe Drinking Water Act doesn’t have a clause like, ‘This is what you do in a fire when a community is completely burned to the ground," Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Drinking Water, told Becker.

Rural voters in four key swing states could help fuel key Biden victories, policy analyst writes

Net Democratic minus Republican votes by urban status; 
Brookings Institution charts; click the image to enlarge it

"The key to Donald Trump’s surprising 2016 victory was his outsized performance in nonurban parts of the electorate, especially whiter rural counties in the critical states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In 2020’s race, Trump is again focusing his attention on this base—but voting patterns from the 2018 midterms and recent surveys indicate support for him in these places could be weaker than four years ago," writes William H. Frey, a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. "The 2018 midterms led to a 'blue wave,' sending 40 additional Democrats to the House of Representatives. It also cut Republican voting margins in the vast majority of small metropolitan and rural counties, including those in northern battleground states."

Recent polls nationwide and in that trio of battleground states, plus Iowa, show a sharp shift among white voters towards Joe Biden and away from Trump. "Especially important for the 2020 election is the trend toward weaker Republican support in the vast majority of suburban, small metropolitan and rural counties. Among the 3,013 such counties, 2,436 showed rises in the D-R margins between 2016 and 2018. Many of these voted Republican in both the 2016 and 2018 elections, but with weaker—sometimes much weaker—Republican support in 2018," Frey reports. 

"The trends revealed here point toward an electoral pivot in rural and small towns since 2016—if not to full-throated Biden support, then certainly to weaker Trump support," Frey reports. "While the 2018 midterm elections may not be a completely accurate predicator of county-level support for the president on Election Day 2020, it does indicate weaker Republican support among many small metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties than what existed in 2016. Declining support for Trump among non-college whites in recent polls would seem to reinforce this trend."

The life and work of a rural mail carrier, an election linchpin

The subject of the story runs his route in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona. (Photo by Daniel Månsson)

"America’s presidential race could well be determined by postal votes," The Economist notes. "Those delivering ballots through inhospitable conditions are often overworked and underpaid."

That's the teaser for a story by Ellice Lueders in The Economist's 1843 magazine about her uncle, whom she calls Guy to protect his identity. U.S. Postal Service folks aren't supposed to talk about their work, so the story is a rare incisive glimpse into the lives of postal-route contractors, who serve rural routes on which the USPS doesn't want to spend health-insurance and pension money.

"He is paid the same rate no matter how long his delivery round takes," Lueders writes. "In recent years the amount he is obliged to deliver each day has increased significantly, meaning he has to spend even longer hours on the road. Lately every day has been 'worse than Christmas' as he struggles to cope with increased numbers of election advertisements, as well as parcels ordered by those wary of leaving their houses because of the pandemic. The USPS has never been more necessary or so thinly stretched."

Early on, Lueders tells family and marital history to get to a point: "The Postal Service, for the men in Guy’s family and many others across America, offers a career path for those without other options. . . . So, on every day but Sunday, Guy drives a minimum of 87 miles and delivers around 180 parcels to rural post offices and the homes that lie between them."

The Postal Service has made up for the decline in first-class mail with more parcel deliveries, "but in low-income areas such as the one Guy serves [customers] cannot afford to buy much stuff. In order to make up for the dearth of first-class mail, the Postal Service has doubled down on providing marketing circulars for businesses. Every day Guy sorts and delivers thousands of pieces of junk mail. Most people discard these before reading them, but sorting it takes up the majority of his time."

Leuders concludes, "With the election looming, Americans everywhere are depending on people like Guy to save their country, whichever way they are considering voting. For Guy, though, the future won’t change. He has no retirement savings. He confesses to me that he might work the route until the day he dies. He probably will."

Religion mixes with politics as hundreds of rural churches pledge to 'vote with values' and Patriot Churches pop up

Pastor Ken Peters prays with attendees at a Patriot Church in Lenoir City, Tenn.

(Photo by Stacy Kranitz for the Washington Post)

Churches are barred from endorsing political candidates if they want to keep their non-profit status, but as usual the presidential election has nonetheless prompted commentary and advocacy from many faith leaders and spurred the creation of a new evangelical group. 

President Trump enjoys broad support from white evangelicals, whom he promised more political power; 81 percent voted for him in 2016, and the latest Pew Research Center polling shows that 78% support him now. But some evangelicals and other Christians oppose him on moral grounds.

Earlier this month, a group called Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden launched, saying the Democratic challenger's overall agenda is more biblically sound though they disagree with the Democratic Party's stance on abortion rights, Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports for The Washington Post.

More than 100 faith leaders from rural and small-town churches from various denominations across the U.S. recently signed a pledge to "vote with values of compassion, love, mercy and love for their neighbors. The pledge endorses no candidate or party, but some tenets seem to signal or greenlight Democratic support, including a commitment to help victims of racial injustice and an emphasis on "the importance of family unity and reunification." The signatories are part of Church World Service, a non-profit organization that aims to help communities worldwide through "just and sustainable responses to hunger, poverty, displacement and disaster." The Rev. John McCullough, president and CEO of CWS, is affiliated with Vote Common Good, an organization urging people of faith to oppose Trump on moral grounds. McCullough, and 1,600 other faith leaders endorsed Biden earlier this month.

Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are reluctant to vote for Trump, citing his moral failings. In Arizona, the only toss-up state with a significant Mormon population, that could help swing its 11 electoral votes to Biden, Hank Stephenson reports for The New York Times.

However, some people of faith are embracing Trump more firmly, as new congregations affiliated with the Christian nationalist "Patriot Church" movement are starting to pop up, Bailey reports for the Post. The movement is nondenominational but decidedly straightforward about its conservative politics. For many at one Patriot Church in Tennessee, "The political boldness in worship is a breath of fresh air. They complain that social media restricts their free speech, and they fear government-mandated vaccines," Bailey reports. "Whether Trump wins or loses, religion experts believe these Americans are building powerful networks that are expected to endure long after Trump has left the White House."

Interior Department issues final rule removing Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves, numbering 6,000

A gray wolf and pups in California's Lassen National Forest (U.S. Forest Service trail camera photo via Washington Post)

"The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is stripping gray wolves of their Endangered Species Act protections in the Lower 48 states, ignoring an outcry from conservation groups and scientists who say the animals will be slaughtered as a result and might not survive," Darryl Fears reports for The Washington Post. "Under a final rule expected to go into effect early next week . . . state wildlife agencies will assume control of managing an estimated 6,000 wolves, mostly in three Midwestern states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota." An estimated 1,800 are in other states.

“After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in announcing the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Fears reports, "The population is up from 1,000 when gray wolves were listed as endangered starting in 1967, officials said. But their population is still so depleted that thousands of acres of historical wolf habitat in Utah, Colorado and Maine is uninhabited by any wolves, conservationists said."

This is "the second time in the last decade that federal wildlife officials have tried to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list, where they say the animals no longer belong now that they’re thriving in the wild," notes Anna Phillips of the Los Angeles Times. "Like the previous attempt, which took place under the Obama administration, this latest effort is expected to face legal challenges."

Firearm sales at or near record high amid rising tension; Walmart takes guns and ammo behind the counter for now

Amid rising anxieties about the pandemic, racial injustice and election-related fears, Americans are on track to hit a record high for single-year firearm purchases, according to groups that track Federal Bureau of Investigation background-check data and other analytics firms.

"Across the country, Americans bought 15.1 million guns in the seven months this year from March through September, a 91 percent leap from the same period in 2019, according to seasonally adjusted firearms sales estimates from The Trace, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on gun issues," Dionne Searcey and Richard A. Oppel Jr. report for The New York Times. "The FBI has also processed more background checks for gun purchases in just the first nine months of 2020 than it has for any previous full year, FBI data show."

Small Arms Analytics, a firearms analytics company, estimates Americans have purchased nearly 17 million firearms in 2020. "The previous record for estimated firearms sold in a single year was 16.6 million in 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran for president against Donald Trump and endorsed a strong gun-control platform," Lois Beckett reports for The Guardian.

Walmart has pulled guns and ammunition from store shelves, citing worries that civil unrest could prompt looting and theft of the merchandise, Vanessa Romo reports for NPR. The items are still for sale in stores that normally sell them, but they are not on the floor and customers must request them.

Former HHS secretary: Supreme Court case on Affordable Care Act could devastate the rural health-care system

A challenge at the Supreme Court to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could devastate rural America’s fragile health-care system, according to Kathleen Sebelius, a former Kansas governor who was secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "during the landmark legislation’s passage and rollout." Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder.

On Tuesday at the Rural Assembly Everywhere virtual conference, Sebelius said the pending case has created "a very precarious situation where all of that could be struck down . . . All of those provisions could vanish, including Medicaid expansion." Sebelius noted that Kansas has lost three rural hospitals in the past two years, partly because the state did not expand Medicaid under the law, Marema reports.

"Since 2010, 133 rural hospitals have closed nationally, according to the University of North Carolina Sheps Center. Most have been in states that did not expand Medicaid," Marema notes.

In 2018, Texas and 19 other states sued to have the ACA declared unconstitutional on grounds that Congress's removal of the individual mandate to buy health insurance had removed the linchpin of its constitutionality in a previous Supreme Court decision. Oral arguments in the case are set for Nov. 10.

Quick hits: Think tank says fiscal policy fails rural America; mobile clinics to bring health care to rural East Tennessee

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

A new Wisconsin partnership focuses on farmers' health and well-being. Read more here.

A nonpartisan, independent think tank says fiscal policy is failing rural America. Read more here.

The rural-urban divide is growing in the primary-care workforce, says new study. Read more here.

Retrofitted RVs aim to bring mobile health care to rural East Tennessee. Read more here.

Similarly, retrofitted RVs aim to bring opioid addiction treatment to rural Colorado. Read more here.

A Kansas town that rebuilt as eco-friendly after a big tornado could be a model. Read more here.

How wind turbines are providing a safety net for rural farmers. Read more here.

A proposed wildlife center got a $12 million federal grant after promising jobs and tourists to eastern Kentucky. But four years later, it hasn't materialized. Read more here.

The World Trade Organization has given the European Union permission to impose tariffs on $4 billion worth of American products annually. The action is in retaliation for illegal subsidies given to U.S. airplane maker Boeing. Tariffs could be added to agricultural products, airplanes and other goods. Read more here.

A sociologist and dairy farmer says Democrats are missing one issue that led rural residents in Wisconsin and perhaps other states to vote for President Trump in 2016: Barack Obama failed to fulfill promises to counter increasing corporate power that hurts small farmers. Read more here.

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."

Trump administration OKs logging and development in one of the world's largest intact temperate rainforests

Map by Lauren Tierney, The Washington Post; click to enlarge

As of today, the Trump administration has opened up more than half of Alaska's Tongass National Forest to logging and other developments, "stripping protections that had safeguarded one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests for nearly two decades," Juliet Eilperin reports for The Washington Post. The decision is "one of the most sweeping public lands rollbacks Trump has enacted" and rolls back protections Bill Clinton enacted in 2001.

Logging companies will be allowed "to build roads and cut and remove timber throughout more than 9.3 million acres of forest — featuring old-growth stands of red and yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock," Eilperin reports. "The relatively pristine expanse is also home to plentiful salmon runs and imposing fjords." The new rule says an additional 188,000 forested acres, mainly old-growth timber, will be made available for logging.

The U.S. Forest Service made the announcement in a Federal Register notice Wednesday.

"For years, federal and academic scientists have identified Tongass as an ecological oasis that serves as a massive carbon sink," Eilperin reports. "Its trees — some of which are between 300 and 1,000 years old — absorb at least 8 percent of all the carbon stored in the entire Lower 48′s forests combined." Dominick DellaSalla, chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute's Wild Heritage project, told Eilperin that "the Tongass is the lungs of North America."

The move highlights the administration's tenuous relationship with environmentalism. "While Trump has repeatedly touted his commitment to planting trees through the One Trillion Tree initiative, invoking it as recently as last week, his administration has sought to expand logging in Alaska and in the Pacific Northwest throughout his presidency," "Eilperin reports. "Federal judges have blocked several of these plans as illegal: Last week, the administration abandoned its appeal of a ruling that struck down a 1.8 million-acre timber sale on the Tongass’s Prince of Wales Island."

Fact-checking the presidential campaigns in the final stretch

With less than a week before Election Day, both presidential campaigns are scrambling to win over undecided voters—sometimes with less-than-truthful claims. Here's our weekly fact-check round-up:

President Trump has made repeated false and misleading claims about the coronavirus pandemic. He has also responded with denials and attacks when journalists fact-checked his claims on-camera, and has told crowds at rallies that media coverage of the pandemic is meant to damage him politically and should violate election laws, Salvador Rizzo reports for The Washington Post's Fact Checker. 

Though cases are spiking across the nation, especially in rural areas, Trump insists "We're rounding the corner." He also says numbers are rising because we do more testing than other nations, but health experts say it's because the U.S. has not controlled the spread of the disease as much as most other countries, Rizzo reports. Trump has claimed that Republican-governed states such as Arizona, Florida and Texas are weathering the virus successfully, while Democrat-governed states are faring worse, partly because of more stringent shut-down orders. That's false; read the article for more details.

At an Oct. 27 rally in Omaha, Trump insinuated that the news media began reporting that coronavirus immunity only lasts four months, not for a lifetime, only after he became infected. That's false, Rizzo reports. Public-health experts are still learning how long post-infection immunity lasts. 

In Oct. 27 in remarks to reporters, Trump said counting ballots for weeks after Election Day "is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that's by our laws." He is wrong. "Time after Election Day to count absentee ballots, overseas military ballots, and provisional ballots is enshrined in both federal and state law,"  Louis Jacobson reports for Politifact. "In fact, federal law allows states until more than a month after the election to finalize their results before the casting of electoral votes."

Democratic challenger Joe Biden misspoke twice in the past week about his plan to pay for free community college through the corporate minimum tax. The plan is iffy in the first place: several independent tax groups say the move would raise half of what the Biden campaign estimates, at most. "But on two occasions in the last week, Biden has muddied things even further by flubbing the campaign’s talking point on how much the tax would raise, and how much his higher education proposal would cost," Robert Farley reports for FactCheck.org.

In a "60 Minutes" interview on CBS Oct. 25, Biden "grossly underestimated" how much it would cost to provide free community college; his campaign later said Biden misspoke. And at an Oct. 24 rally, Biden muddled the numbers again, this time mistakenly saying that a 15% corporate minimum tax would raise $40 billion. The plan on Biden's website estimates that the move would raise $400 billion.

Trump made repeated false and misleading claims at three Oct. 26 rallies about ballots and voting fraud, including a claim that the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is responsible for counting mail-in ballots. Under state law, county election boards investigate possible fraud, count ballots, and certify the results. The governor has no such authority, FactCheck.org reports. 

Politifact also has an excellent roundup of various social media memes and rumors. Click here.

Tips for safely participating in Halloween during a pandemic

Getty Images

With Halloween coming up on Saturday, many families are wondering how to safely participate in trick-or-treat during a pandemic. It's an especially urgent question for families in rural areas, where infection rates are higher and rising. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of recommended low- and moderate-risk activities, as well as a list of activities to avoid.

One important note first, though: The CDC warns that a costume mask isn't a substitute for a protective cloth mask, and suggests incorporating a Halloween-themed cloth mask into your child's costume. It warns that a costume mask shouldn't be worn over a protective cloth mask, since it can make it hard for children to breathe.

For those in high-risk areas, here are some low-risk activities that don't require you to interact closely with others:

• Carving or painting pumpkins
• Decorating your home
• An outdoor scavenger hunt where children look for Halloween- or autumn-themed items while staying on the sidewalk
• An indoor scavenger hunt or candy search in your home
• A virtual costume contest
• A Halloween movie night with the family—don't forget the candy!

Here are some activities the CDC recommends as moderate-risk, appropriate for those who live in lower-risk areas:

• Socially-distanced trick-or-treating, where individually wrapped goody bags are lined up at the edge of a yard or driveway (not in a bowl where many hands will leave germs). Those preparing goody bags should wash their hands thoroughly beforehand.
• A small, outdoor, open-air costume parade where people stay at least six feet apart
• An open-air, one-way, walk-through haunted forest with people staying more than six feet apart and appropriate mask usage enforced
• Visiting a pumpkin patch or orchard with plenty of hand sanitizer, social distancing, and protective masks
• An outdoor Halloween movie night with, of course, everyone at least six feet apart. If the movie is likely to make people scream, the CDC advises distancing people more than six feet, since screaming can propel germs further into the surrounding space.

The CDC recommends people avoid these high-risk activities:

• Traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating
• Trunk-or-treat parties in parking lots
• Crowded costume parties indoors
• Indoor haunted houses where people may be crowded together and screaming
• Hayrides or tractor rides with people who aren't in your household
• Using alcohol or drugs, which can cloud judgment and increase risky behaviors
• Going to a rural fall festival outside of your community, if you live in a high-risk area

A deeper look at how partisan sites that pretend to be reliable local news sources operate

There's a growing trend, especially in election-battleground states, of partisan outfits masquerading as local news websites and delivering highly biased content. In Texas, many of these "pink slime journalism" sites are operated by Metric Media, one of many companies overseen by internet entrepreneur Brian Timpone. With the federal government unlikely to step in, such sites are dangerous to democracy, political science professor Coda Rayo-Garza writes for Route Fifty.

Rayo-Garza provides a deeper look into how such sites mix in credible news with partisan content to pass readers' smell test, how Timpone exploits expanding news deserts with pink-slime sites, and provides updated statistics on how common such websites are.  

"Pink-slime journalism has the potential to exacerbate our already polarized political landscape," Rayo-Garza writes. "Hyper-partisanship has allowed fake news to threaten the underpinnings of our democracy by hampering society’s ability to agree on basic facts. When a society disagrees on what is true and false, achieving consensus on political solutions becomes virtually impossible."

NOAA's chief scientist fired after asking new political officers to acknowledge agency's scientific-integrity policy

The Trump administration fired the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and "installed new political staff who have questioned accepted facts about climate change and imposed stricter controls on communications at the agency," The New York Times reports. "The moves threaten to stifle a major source of objective United States government information about climate change that underpins federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions and offer an indication of the direction the agency will take if President Trump wins re-election."

When NOAA's acting chief scientist "sent some of the new political appointees a message that asked them to acknowledge the agency’s scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or presenting ideologically driven findings," he was fired by "a former White House policy adviser who had just been appointed NOAA’s chief of staff," Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman report.

Charlotte Klein reports for Vanity Fair, "The Trump administration is also placing restrictions on internal and external messages at the agency. The policy change requires all communications—from social media posts to press releases to agency-wide emails—to be approved by political staff at the Commerce Department at least three days before they are released, a move meant to ensure communications 'serve the needs of your employees and mission while aligning with the over-arching guidance from the White House and Department,' a memo issued by the department said. The new limits underscore the environmental implications of next week’s vote—and offer a grim preview of what a second Trump term would look like for climate research."

EPA greenlights three types of dicamba herbicide through 2025, limits states' ability to further restrict its use

The Environmental Protection Agency has authorized three formulations of the herbicide dicamaba for over-the-top use for five years, running through 2025. On a Tuesday evening press call, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler "stated that EPA has granted five-year registrations to two canceled dicamba herbicides -- XtendiMax and Engenia -- as well as a re-registered dicamba herbicide, Tavium," Emily Unglesbee reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "All three now require a nationwide June 30 cutoff date for use in soybeans and a July 30 cutoff date for use in cotton, regardless of growth stage. The agency also announced it is limiting states' ability to add further restrictions to the federal labels."

In early June, a federal appeals court banned sales of dicamba-based products in the U.S. through late December, saying that the EPA did not do its due diligence when reauthorizing the controversial herbicide in 2018. That reauthorization expires Dec. 20. But soon after the court ruling, EPA told farmers they could use existing stores of dicamba through July. A federal appeals court upheld that call, but until now it was unclear whether dicamba would be legal in 2021. 

Rural-urban political divide widens; Ohio is an example

USA Today map; click on the image to enlarge it

Party politics have changed in Ohio and across the country, with the times and the demographics. "Democrats have lost ground in rural areas and Republicans have a hard time winning in urban areas," Jackie Borchardt and Céilí Doyle report for The Columbus Dispatch. "The best predictor of whether a state will vote red or blue is whether more people live in urban areas vs. rural places, said Will Wilkinson, vice president for research at the Niskanen Center, a moderate D.C. think tank."

USA Today journalists explored how the political leanings of four Ohio counties have changed over the past 20 years, including a discussion of the rural-urban political divide and what it might take to bridge the gap. "Most people spoke of national politics that don't reflect the cities and small towns they live and work in, as well as frustrations about the way in which their communities are represented," Borchardt and Doyle report.

Presidential-election votes in Hamilton (Cincinnati) and Franklin (Columbus) counties trended more Democratic between 1996 and 2016, while Scioto and Monroe counties, more rural, became more conservative, Borchardt and Doyle report. Read more here.

Rural counties hit record high for new coronavirus cases Oct. 18-24, fifth week in a row; metropolitan cases rising too

New coronavirus infections, Oct. 18-24
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

New coronavirus infections hit a record high in rural counties from Oct. 18 through 24, the fifth week in a row. "Rural counties had a record 17,818 new infections on Friday, Oct. 23. Even though metropolitan cases did not hit a record that day, rural America’s high number drove infections to a new nationwide peak of 82,887 infections in a single day," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "Rural counties also hit a one-week record for new infections last week at 91,961. That’s a 13% increase over the previous week and the fifth consecutive record-breaking week for rural counties."

The number of red-zone rural counties dropped slightly last week: 10 counties were removed from the list, but about 70% of rural counties, or 1,348, remain in the red zone. The White House Coronavirus Task Force defines red zones as areas with at least one new infection per 1,000 people.

Precedent-setting Colorado ballot measure would require state biologists to reintroduce gray wolves on public lands

A gray wolf in Wallowa County, Oregon (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife photo)

Gray wolves once roamed the southern Rocky Mountains but were hunted out of existence. Colorado voters are deciding whether to bring them back.

"If approved, a precedent-setting ballot measure would require state biologists to reintroduce the native carnivores to more than 17 million acres of rugged public lands in Colorado’s rural west by the end of 2023," Jennifer Oldham reports for The Washington Post. "The proposal is the capstone of a 40-year campaign by conservationists to return the animals to their former range along the Rocky Mountain chain from Canada to Mexico. And it could herald a paradigm shift in wildlife management, backers say, by giving Coloradans the nation’s first vote on reintroducing an endangered species to a place it once thrived — a decision typically reserved for government scientists." Read more here.

Food and farm workers need food, despite federal farm aid

President Trump has given farmers record amounts of pandemic relief, but many farmworkers, food-processing workers, and small family farmers need food assistance, according to dozens of food banks nationwide; meanwhile, hunger is rising in the U.S., particularly in states with a high proportion of rural residents, Christopher Walljasper and Gabriela Bhaskar report for Reuters.

"The Trump administration has paid farmers nearly $18 billion in direct payments since June through its Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, but nearly 92 percent of farmers in Wisconsin received less aid than it costs to run an average dairy in the state for a month," Reuters reports. "More than 54 million people in the United States could struggle to afford food during the pandemic, with the biggest increases in food insecurity in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to Feeding America, a network of 60,000 U.S. food shelters."

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the CFAP is meant to keep food on Americans' tables, but Reuters says much of the aid isn't reaching farmworkers, since the program doesn't stipulate that.

"The agriculture department has distributed 9.5 million food boxes since June under a program meant to funnel food quickly to those who need it, but food pantry workers say it will not be enough," Walljasper and Bhaskar report. "Weekly survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau and an annual study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that hunger is rising, particularly in rural states, after a decade of decline. By late September, Vermont, West Virginia and North Dakota topped the Bureau’s list, with a more than 50% increase in respondents saying they lacked enough to eat."

Tennessee hospital group to begin deferring elective procedures because of covid-19 patient spike

Ballad Health, which owns a host of rural hospitals, will begin deferring elective procedures at three of its Tennessee hospitals because of a spike in covid-19 hospitalizations, CEO Alan Levine announced in a series of tweets. They might have to reschedule more if cases continue to rise. 

Ballad Health, which operates 21 hospitals in four states, said Oct. 26 it is caring for 166 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 28 of whom are in the intensive care unit," Alia Paavola reports for Becker's Hospital Review. "On Oct. 26, Ballad began rescheduling up to 25 percent of elective services at Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, Tenn. In a few days, procedures will begin being deferred at Bristol Regional Medical Center and Johnson City Medical Center."

The rising caseload likely reflects rising caseloads in not just the metropolitan counties where the hospitals are located, but the rural counties surrounding them, since rural residents with serious covid-19 cases are usually taken to larger regional hospitals.

Rural voters' approval rating for Trump's job performance is 53%, according to Zogby poll done for Progressive Farmer

A recent poll of rural American voters shows that just over half (53%) approve of President Trump's job performance, including how he's handling the pandemic, and 50% plan to vote for him—a lead of 18 percentage points over Democratic challenger Joe Biden, Dan Miller reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. The poll also provides a snapshot into rural voters' lives and what they care about most in the election.

"Support for the president is strongest in the critical Central Great Lakes region of the United States (55% of rural adults support him there), among those 65 years of age and older (60% support him), rural white people (55%) and married rural adults (57%)," Miller reports. Meanwhile, 42% of respondents somewhat or strongly disapprove of the president's job performance.

Here are some other findings, which Miller also discusses in this piece. Among respondents:

• 40% identify as Republicans, but 49% say they'll vote for Republicans in congressional races.
• 23% identify as Democrats, but 31% say they'll vote for Democrats in congressional races.
• 62% said the strength of the economy is the issue that will most influence their vote; 48% said health care, and 39% said protection of Second Amendment rights.
• Health care is the top issue for rural Democrats, with 64% saying it's the most important factor in their vote. That's the only demographic where health care has a significant edge over other issue. They are also the only rural demographic that considers climate change one of the top issues: 48% said it's important, compared to 27% overall.
• 11% said they're undecided about their choice for president.
• 29% are farmers or have family members who farm.
• 39% said agriculture is worse off than it was four years ago; 23% said it's better off, and 17% are undecided.
• Republicans (40%) and Southerners (29%) are more likely than other groups to believe agriculture is better off.
• 56% of farmers believe Trump's trade deals with China, Mexico and Canada have led to higher income potential for their farm.
• 59% said their farm would be struggling if not for direct federal aid given because of the pandemic and the trade war.

The DTN/Progressive Farmer Zogby Analytics Election poll surveyed 1,008 adults in rural counties and 120 completed surveys from the Progressive Farmer subscriber list; the margin of error is 2.9%. The article includes more details on respondents' demographics and political affiliations. Click here to read more findings from the poll.

Growing weariness with social-distancing spurs higher infection rates; how rural officials can help keep cases down

With the pandemic stretching into its tenth month, more and more people are shrugging off social-distancing measures, whether out of necessity or because they're tired of them. "With no end in sight, many people are flocking to bars, family parties, bowling alleys and sporting events much as they did before the virus hit, and others must return to school or work as communities seek to resuscitate economies," Julie Bosman, Sarah Mervosh and Marc Santora report for The New York Times. "And in sharp contrast to the spring, the rituals of hope and unity that helped people endure the first surge of the virus have given way to exhaustion and frustration."

That apathy threatens to drive up infection rates as colder weather comes and more people are indoors, where the virus can more easily spread, the Times reports. 

It's especially problematic in the rural U.S., where impatience with public health recommendations is coinciding with soaring infection rates, University of Colorado family medicine professors Lauren Hughes and Roberto Silva report for The Conversation. 

Rural infection rates are on the rise because of many factors, including politicization, misinformation, the presence of meatpacking plants and prisons, and lack of broadband (which makes remote work and schooling difficult or impossible), Hughes and Silva report.

Rural communities can tamp down on surging cases but must consider their unique demographics, economies and perspectives to develop policies that can prevent or address future outbreaks. "For example, allowing rural communities to exert control over their reopening and closing decisions based on local disease transmission dynamics would allow them to better balance disease mitigation with economic impacts," Hughes and Silva report. "Some states allow rural communities with few or no cases to apply for waivers from statewide public health orders. These applications generally look at local infection data, containment measures and health care capacity."

Local officials might also frame the pandemic differently to ensure higher compliance with public-health measures. "For example, a public service message could remind people that wearing a mask keeps your favorite business open and your grandmother healthy," Hughes and Silva report. "Framing levels of risk in understandable terms for different types of activities can also help, such as how to exercise or socialize safely. Working with trusted local messengers, such as business owners and faith leaders, can help convey evidence-based information."