DISPATCH
A few years back, I did a Q&A with Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez just after she won her first House election. I wasn’t surprised when her comments, like the high cost of a catalytic converter replacement or her critique of environmentalism as “a luxury good,” got a lot of attention in Washington, D.C.
What I wasn’t prepared for: The number of reporters or Hill staff who came up to me afterwards and complimented me on my questions. She represents my home district, so the questions I asked seemed, quite frankly, obvious to me. But I had friends asking about catalytic converters and “Right to Repair” laws for weeks afterwards.
That response was the first moment that I realized — in a city and industry that prizes generational connections to power and Ivy League degrees — that perhaps being a rural kid could be a superpower.
But the lack of power that rural people hold (even when they decide elections) means it can sometimes be hard to get buy-in or sign off on stories about their communities. Even though I’ve been able to write often about issues facing rural Americans from Oregon to Montana, there are many more untold stories I’ve heard about that were never greenlit for one reason or another. And while I’m now freelancing for a variety of outlets, I’ll use this newsletter as a consistent home for my reporting on the politics of rural communities and how policy made in the nation’s capitol affects them in particular.
Why rural America?
Rural America is often considered solidly red, but 30 years ago that wasn’t the case.
In 1996, Bill Clinton won 52% of rural counties. But in 2024, Kamala Harris won just 8%.
The policy decisions that drove rural voters from the Democratic party, and the GOP’s strategy to retain them, are deeply important heading into these midterms. Both parties are targeting districts with significant rural voting blocs: NC-11, WI-03, NM-02, CO-08, MT-01, ME-02, WA-03 and PA-08, just to name a few. Issues like trade, Medicaid and ACA subsidy cuts, changes to mail-in voting, data centers and more are top of mind in many of these rural areas.
Recent polling shows that President Trump’s support is eroding in rural communities: a Reuters/IPSOS poll in June, for example, found that 48% of voters disapproved of Trump — a 14 percentage point increase from his 34% disapproval rating when he began his second term.
Who is this newsletter for?
Anyone from out of state. Let me explain: a lot of the people who find themselves in rural America to write a midterms article, get a federal politician elected, register voters, or learn about a federal policy problem are coming in from out of state. Reporters, lobbyists, policy experts and campaign staffers from rural communities are the exception — not the rule — inside the Beltway. It means that many of the people making incredibly important choices about rural communities lack context or a deep understanding about what matters most to those people, and don’t know how to go about bridging the cultural divide to learn what they need to know.
So this newsletter will focus on rural and working class voters, written for the people who regularly fly out of state to interview them, write policy for them, lobby them, or try to get them to vote one way or another. I’ll be writing about everything from data centers, public lands and the environment, to infrastructure, medicaid and healthcare, and any other major policy that impacts rural communities. And I’ll regularly feature interviews with politicians and policymakers on the state and federal level who represent rural America or are running in a rural community.
FIELD NOTES
I get asked a lot of questions about rural America from reporters, staffers and other folks working in “official Washington” — everything from where they should do “Man on the Street” interviews to what clothes to wear and what the federal government often misses about rural America. This section will be a place to answer some of those questions — not only from my perspective, but also from the perspective of other rural people.
Today, I’m going to use this section to quickly outline my background and why I have credibility to report on rural communities. Many of you early subscribers already know me, but I think it’s important that readers know where I’m coming from.
My hometown is an unincorporated community of about 4,000 people on the edge of a large metropolitan region in Southwest Washington state. No stoplights, sidewalks, pizza delivery, public transportation or cable TV, but we did get the newspaper. The small town church I grew up attending was a pretty decent cross-section of rural society; some families owned speedboats and others captained tugboats.
We lived in the wildland urban interface and were census-designated rural. But I also grew up just past the urban-rural line, and there are certain rural experiences I did not have.
I did not grow up hours away from school, stores or services, did not need to book an overnight stay when I visited a medical specialist, and my parents never worried about whether the fire truck or ambulance would get to our house in time. My parents were teachers, so I grew up white collar (or “pink collar”) and did not feel any serious financial instability as a child. My familiarity with blue-collar jobs like construction, timber, union carpentry or farming comes from extended family and friends, not my own nuclear family.
The perceptions of rural Americans are often dominated by poor Appalachian towns, wealthy Virginia horse farm owners or Montana cattle ranchers (where are my Yellowstone fans?), but there are many versions of rural America. Over time, you’ll probably meet more of them in this newsletter.
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DETOURS
(Notable quick hits)
Rural America has a medical labor shortage, from licensed physicians and nurses to lab techs. That’s why so many states applying for the Rural Health Transformation Program included employment and workforce development in their grant applications to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services earlier this year. States are now beginning to hand out those grants, giving us a “did you put your money where your mouth is?” opportunity for some of these proposals.
A 2023 study in Washington state showed that students who trained in rural areas were nearly twice as likely to return there to work after their training was complete. Oregon, Iowa, and Ohio are among states that announced some of their RHTP funds will pay for new residencies in rural areas – with Iowa funding a whopping 128 new residency programs.
Of particular interest is the $10 million grant to Ohio University, awarded as part of Ohio’s RHT program, that will (among other things) “expand healthcare exploration” for teens (assumedly in rural communities, though the governor’s press release doesn’t specify).
The focus on rural teens is interesting because in addition to residency location, a major factor motivating physicians to practice in rural America is whether or not they grew up there. Currently, rural Americans make up 20 percent of the nation’s population but only 5 percent of medical students, according to the Association of American Medical College. I’m keeping an eye on how many states actually incorporate long-term plans to attract more students into the medical profession into their pipeline goals.
Data centers continue to create unexpected bedfellows: on Monday, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno chided the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for permitting data centers to release wastewater and stormwater into Ohio’s lakes and streams (something the agency has been considering for months). “Data centers should be held to the same, or higher, environmental standards as any other business,” Moreno wrote on X.
Meanwhile in Texas, Republicans are divided. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott last month said he wanted to ban data centers in rural Texas, but GOP Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian told CBS News Texas that the revenue from data centers could help rebuild the economies of rural Texas.
READING LIST
Fire watch: There are two major wildfires wreaking havoc in Colorado right now. The state extended a tax filing deadline for residents impacted by the wildfires. And tragically, a helicopter pilot helping fight the fires died on Sunday.
Rural health: The closure of a large hospital in rural Michigan near the Indiana border is a “wake-up call” and could be the “first of many.” The closure has extended the average emergency response distance from about 2 miles to about 25 miles, tying up ambulances with longer drives to deliver patients to a hospital.
Long read: Why is Land O’Lakes (yes the butter company) investing millions to change Hollywood’s portrayal of rural America? [Fortune]
If you made it this far, I want to know if you’ve been watching the World Cup and who you’re rooting for in today and tomorrow’s semifinal matches — email me at nataliefertig@gmail.com with your answer, and any tips or questions! I’ll be back in your inbox next Tuesday with another edition of Out of State.