NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — If you go down two hallways, past two security checkpoints to a quiet corner of the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting at the Gaylord Convention Center, you’ll find two-time failed congressional candidate Adam Frisch’s new campaign posters, all emblazoned with the slogan: “Dems Lost Rural America.”
Frisch, running for DNC vice chair, is telling everyone he can about the percentage of rural counties won by Democrats over the last 30 years. In 1996, Clinton won 52%. In 2012, Obama won 25%. In 2024, Harris won 8%. His campaign is built around trying to change that, or at least to slow down the decay.
“I’m not saying the whole entire thing needs to be burnt down, but the party needs to figure out how to talk to more people and realize that when it comes to immigration, the economy, domestic energy, that the loudest voices are representing 5 or 10% of the country,” Frisch said in an interview with NOTUS.
Yet, at the top, the race to lead the DNC has avoided major proposals or a shake-up to the party after President Donald Trump won seven battleground states and exceeded his margins in rural counties across the country in a way he never had before.
The two front-runners for party chair — Minnesota chair and current DNC Vice Chair Ken Martin and Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler — are in the party’s mainstream, and their disagreements are down to mechanics, not policy or vision of the future.
The race has left some rural Democrats frustrated at the lack of a bold path forward while the urban-rural divide of the party only continues to grow.
“To say that there’s just minor things that need to happen, I just don’t think that’s fair,” Frisch said. He’s not endorsing Martin or Wikler ahead of Saturday’s election.
Both Martin and Wikler have strategy plans to compete in every state and territory, an idea based on former Chair Howard Dean’s original 50-state plan. The Democratic Party, the plan argues, won’t be able to win a majority in Congress or compete nationally without putting resources in every state at the local level, even deeply Republican rural regions.
Current Chair Jaime Harrison also pledged a 50-state strategy, saying in his acceptance speech when taking the helm four years ago that “we are done with just focusing on our cities while forgetting those living on dirt roads.”
In his final memo as DNC chair, Harrison argued rural Americans will face unique challenges under Trump on issues like health care and school funding. He told NOTUS on Wednesday that as DNC chair, he “laid the foundation” for making inroads with rural areas again.
“Now it’s about building on that foundation,” Harrison said of his successor.
Some rural Democratic leaders said that hadn’t been their experience over the last four years.
“There were so many rural people so fired up about this election who couldn’t get resources, couldn’t get information, couldn’t get support,” rural Democratic strategist Teresa Purcell said.
Harrison brought Purcell to the DNC as the senior adviser for rural Democratic engagement in March 2022, a temporary position eliminated after the midterm election.
No staff member at the DNC was tasked with organizing rural Democrats until Harrison hired his former political director, Bre Maxwell, as rural vote director in July 2024, a position also eliminated after the election.
“Because of the cyclical nature of staffing, there’s not a lot of historical lists and contexts,” Purcell said. “The structures don’t work, and it’s not a priority.”
In a recent candidate forum hosted by the DNC rural council, Martin and Wikler each emphasized the need for Democrats to improve their relationships in rural areas. Neither committed, however, to staffing a full-time permanent person at the DNC to lead the effort.
“I honestly don’t know how this race ended up being the race that it is,” Purcell said. “I have a lot of respect for both the front-runners, but this requires a do-over.”
Matt Barron, a rural Democratic strategist and co-leader of Harris’ rural organizing team, said a full-time rural desk would be a “tangible sign” party leadership is serious about investing in local races and off-year elections, not just the presidential or major Senate races.
“This idea of coming in like three months before the U.S. Senate or House election and trying to force-feed voters stuff at the last minute, it just doesn’t work,” Barron said. “And the Republicans don’t do this.”
“Unless you’re committed to building this permanent infrastructure, I think these tours where you show up and listen, it’s seen as gimmicky and insulting. Because it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna listen to you,’ but then we won’t see you for four years,” he said.
Democratic officials disagree on where the blame truly lies. Some point to Harrison’s leadership, while others told NOTUS he had the best of intentions but was left stymied by a White House under Joe Biden that took control over the DNC.
“I am not one of those Democrats who’s going to put the blame on Jaime Harrison’s shoulder,” Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb told NOTUS, calling Harrison “one of the strongest proponents of rural organizing.”
“If he had the ability to dictate where the budget of the DNC went over these past four years, trust and believe more money would have gone to dirt road Democrats,” Kleeb said.
“Unfortunately, the White House was dictating the vast majority of decisions, and it shouldn’t be that way,” she said.
Activist David Hogg, running for vice chair, echoed this point during a candidate forum on Thursday night.
“I wish the White House would have let him have more control, because I think we would have been in an even better place than we are right now,” Hogg said of Harrison.
Kleeb — who is also running to lead the Association of State Democratic Committees — is backing Martin. The two have pledged to increase the amount of DNC funding funneled straight to state parties, up from the current 10% to 25% “at a minimum,” she said.
Even with the added funding, Kleeb said it could be a long time before Democrats see returns.
She said rural Americans are in a cycle of “mutual neglect.” They feel ignored by the Democratic Party, don’t see themselves reflected in party leadership and don’t hear messaging on the issues that matter to them. Even though Biden pushed for rural energy and broadband, and as the party stands against corporate consolidation of agriculture and for clean air and clean water, “they don’t see themselves in leaders.”
“So they don’t vote, and therefore the Democratic Party doesn’t invest in them. It just becomes this cycle,” Kleeb said.
“We are at our lowest point that we have been in years,” she added. “We have to do a full reset of the Democratic Party.”
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Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.