Democrats are mounting an effort to reclaim rural districts across the upper Midwest, betting that anger over high prices, tariffs and the war in Iran can break the Republican grip on areas that turned sharply to the right during Donald Trump’s rise.
The party’s prospects are being tested in western Wisconsin, southern Minnesota and eastern Iowa, where local organisers believe even a favourable midterm climate will not overcome years of distrust without a hard-fought ground campaign.
“Everything’s on a razor’s edge,” said Clara Serrano, a Democratic volunteer canvassing among farms and cornfields outside Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, Rebecca Cooke is again challenging Republican representative Derrick Van Orden. She narrowly lost to him in 2024, but received about 9,000 more votes than Kamala Harris across the district.
Cooke, who grew up on a local farm, has sought to establish an independent rural identity while keeping her distance from the national Democratic Party. She has regularly canvassed rural communities and attacked Van Orden over data centre developments that have triggered opposition locally.
At a recent meeting, she also heard concerns about a proposed high-voltage transmission line running through farmland. Her campaign has embraced the backing of Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, who endorsed her during the primary and joined her at a rally at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
“I think that the party doesn’t know how to speak the language of rural America, and I feel like I uniquely do,” Cooke said.
Democratic organisers say voters are increasingly receptive to their message. Family farms are struggling with tariffs, diesel has risen above six dollars a gallon and fertiliser costs have increased by more than 30 per cent since the conflict in Iran began earlier this year.
“They’re mad about gas prices. They’re mad about fertilizer. They’re mad about the tariffs,” said William Garcia, co-chair of the La Crosse County Democratic Party. “And so all we do as Democrats is say, ‘Hey, we agree. We rejected all of these things. We’ve been fighting all of these things.’ So it’s much more receptive now than really it’s ever been.”
Wisconsin Democrats say they have been building their rural organisation for almost two years. A new state party initiative has helped strengthen activity in counties where the party has previously struggled.
“We haven’t really stopped organizing since 2024,” said Pete Huff, co-chair of the Dunn County Democratic Party, where Trump won by 16 points.
Democrats target rural Midwest seats
The effort extends into Minnesota, where Democrats are targeting Republican representative Brad Finstad in the 1st Congressional District. Finstad won the seat in a district Trump carried by 12 points, but the race has tightened enough to attract substantial national spending.
Democratic candidate Jake Johnson, a maths teacher, has modelled his campaign on Amy Klobuchar’s approach of visiting every county. Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is due to campaign for him, while Klobuchar, now running for governor, appeared alongside him at an event in Fairmont.
“Things are changing in rural America right now,” Klobuchar told supporters and voters.
Finstad said he had warned national Republicans weeks ago that the contest was becoming competitive, despite the district’s previous margin of victory. “Those of us in Minnesota know that this district has always had kind of an independent streak to it,” he said.
Republicans have argued that tariffs could benefit farmers and that fraud scandals in Minnesota will keep Republican voters engaged. Pro-Trump political groups have only recently begun spending heavily in the district, while Democratic organisations started investing during the summer.
The battle is also intensifying in Iowa, where Democrats are targeting three Republican-held House seats, a Senate seat and the governorship. Republicans privately fear they could lose at least one of the state’s three targeted congressional districts, despite Trump having carried Iowa by 13 points.
Speaker Mike Johnson is due to campaign in the Des Moines-based district of Republican representative Zach Nunn. Republican Joe Mitchell is in a close contest with Democrat Lindsay James, while Mariannette Miller Meeks is widely viewed by Republicans as being in serious danger against Christina Bohannan.
“The tariffs, the Iran war, the health care cuts, these things are just brutal for the people of Southeast Iowa,” Bohannan said.
Democrats see the contests as a test of whether they can rebuild support in rural America before the 2028 presidential election. One House Democrat said failure to win in the current political climate would be “an ominous sign for the party”.
“If we can’t win these seats now in this environment, it seems like we’re in for a world of hurt in 2028,” the Democrat said.
But voters’ economic concerns have not erased their resistance to the national Democratic brand. While canvassing in the Republican-leaning village of Elk Mound, Jeremiah Fredrickson, a Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin state assembly, said he avoided leading with his party affiliation.
“My goal is to try to be a representative,” he said. “I think way too many of our politicians have gotten to the point where they go to Madison, and they forget about the people back here.”
At one home, an older man rejected a leaflet from Serrano, telling her: “I’m not voting for them. No way in hell.”
Van Orden, who is seeking to retain his Wisconsin seat, remains confident that voters will not return to the Democrats. During a tour of his district, he described Cooke as a “flat-out socialist” and dismissed the impact of Sanders’s support, saying voters “hate career politicians”.
He acknowledged that the conflict with Iran was damaging politically and that he did not want fuel prices to rise, but said he was relying on Trump supporters to turn out.
At a bar in Boon Docks, Deb Bork, who lives near Independence, said she would continue supporting Van Orden and Trump despite the hardship caused by higher petrol prices.
“He feels it’s in the best interest of our country to protect us,” she said of the president. “For so long we’ve been out there protecting everybody else and forgetting about the people that live here.”
