On November 25, 2025, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) unveiled an ambitious new initiative: an eight-figure investment, titled “Our Power, Our Country,” aimed at engaging and mobilizing Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI), Black, Latino, and—crucially for the first time—rural voters. This marks the earliest and most comprehensive outreach effort House Democrats have ever mounted to persuade these key voting blocs, which party leaders say are essential to flipping the House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.
The program’s launch comes at a moment of reckoning for Democrats, who have watched rural voters drift steadily toward the Republican Party over the past decade. According to NPR, President Donald Trump captured a staggering 69% of rural voters in the 2024 presidential election, compared to just 29% for Vice President Kamala Harris. That gap, experts say, has only grown as rural communities have felt increasingly alienated by national Democratic messaging and strategy.
“We know that to win the House majority, House Democrats need to meaningfully engage with AANHPI, Black, Latino, and rural voters as early as possible, and Our Power, Our Country is a direct reflection of that commitment,” said DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene in a statement quoted by NPR and echoed in the DCCC’s official announcement. DelBene, who represents Washington’s 1st Congressional District, underscored the party’s resolve to counter what she described as damaging Republican policies—particularly tariffs and health care cuts—that have hit rural communities hard. “Democrats are fighting to improve the lives of rural Americans and farmers,” she told NPR. “Republicans are turning their back. They’ve been actively hurting rural communities with the policies they’ve put in place.”
The new investment encompasses a broad range of strategies. According to the DCCC press release and reporting from NPR, funds will be used for robust research, early paid media and voter education campaigns, direct mail, increased earned media, grassroots organizing, and the hiring of staff dedicated to on-the-ground engagement. Notably, the DCCC has already launched its “Engagement On the Road” tour earlier this year, meeting directly with constituency voters in battleground districts and running national media campaigns in multiple languages, including Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese, to reach AANHPI communities.
“The very first ads the DCCC ran this midterm cycle were targeted for AANHPI voters and ran in Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese newspapers, making clear just how serious we are about taking action earlier than ever to engage voters of color effectively to win back the House,” said Brooke Butler, DCCC National Political Director. “Our Power, Our Country will be an instrumental factor in our fight to victory next November, and the historic addition of the rural engagement program sends a strong message that we’re leaving no voter behind and no stone unturned in our efforts to flip the House majority.”
For the first time, Democrats are dedicating a full-time staffer to strategic rural engagement nationwide, working closely with rural community groups and leaders in key competitive districts—including newly redrawn districts in South Texas. The hope is that a combination of rapid-response digital ad campaigns, in-depth research, paid media with localized messaging in voters’ languages, and in-district organizing will help rebuild trust and enthusiasm among rural and minority voters.
But winning back rural voters will be no easy feat. As Anthony Flaccavento, co-founder and executive director of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, told NPR, “Winning back at least a slice of those rural voters is likely to be hard as hell for Democrats. But it’s a problem the party needs to confront head on.” Flaccavento, a self-described liberal Democrat and small farmer from southwestern Virginia, ran for Congress in 2018 and recounted his own experience: “We held over 100 in-person town hall meetings with close to 7,000 people attending. We had great social media. We raised a million bucks. We did everything right. And I still got annihilated at the voting box 2 to 1.”
Flaccavento and other experts argue that economic frustration is widespread among rural voters, and that Democrats need to embrace a progressive, populist economic stance—focusing on anti-monopoly, pro-union, and infrastructure investment policies—to regain credibility. “It’s very clear to us that a progressive, populist economic stance is what is needed,” he said. “It’s what is needed in substance. Like we need the anti-monopolies, antitrust, pro-union-and-investment-in-infrastructure-type things that go with that.”
Political scientist Nicholas Jacobs of Colby College noted that Democrats’ retreat from rural America began when the party abandoned its 50-state strategy, shifting focus to mobilizing base voters in big cities and persuading independents in the suburbs. “Ultimately, what you get is a complete buy-in to the approach articulated no better than Chuck Schumer himself did, that ‘for every rural working-class person we lose, we’ll pick up two more in the suburbs,’” Jacobs told NPR. “And as 2016 showed, it was a foolish approach, but it didn’t seem to change anything for the next eight years.”
In Kansas, the challenge of connecting with rural voters is playing out in real time. During a November 25 online forum, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Ethan Corson and Cindy Holscher both stressed their commitment to rural outreach in the 2026 race. Corson, who has raised $625,000 since July and boasts deep Kansas roots, criticized Democrats’ habit of “wait[ing] until three weeks before the election, and then we go out to western Kansas and ask people for their votes.” He called this “wrong and disrespectful,” promising a campaign with a “deep moral obligation to do right by western Kansas.”
Holscher, meanwhile, is running a grassroots campaign, emphasizing her rural upbringing and her family’s farm background. She pledged to fight for a lower cost of living and against extremism, promising to be “a fighter” who stands up to President Trump and his allies. Both candidates addressed issues like groundwater scarcity, rural hospital closures, infrastructure, broadband access, and the need for strong public schools—core concerns for rural Kansans.
“The question isn’t whether the Democratic candidates share values. We do,” Holscher said. “The question is, who has the proven ability to deliver results and win tough races?”
Despite the uphill battle, party insiders and outside observers agree that Democrats have little choice but to make a serious, sustained commitment to rural America if they want to build a durable national coalition. “We have to start long-term investment and long-term work across every rural congressional district,” Flaccavento said. “It might be five or 10 years or more before some of them become competitive, but we’ve got to start that work now.”
As the 2026 midterms approach, all eyes will be on whether the DCCC’s early, targeted outreach and new messaging can win back the trust—and the votes—of communities that have felt left behind. The stakes, both for the party and for the country, could hardly be higher.
