How can Dems improve with rural whites?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

ignore them. Let the Republicans take them on, since most of them are voting against their own interests anyway. Focus on minorities/suburban voters, that's what got the House in 2018.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

ignore them. Let the Republicans take them on, since most of them are voting against their own interests anyway. Focus on minorities/suburban voters, that's what got the House in 2018.

Just stop. I could write a whole essay about why, in my case, I am voting very much in my own economic interest (I'm white and I live in a ruralish/exurbanish area that's hard to definitively classify as rural or not-rural) by voting straight ticket R at every election, but I know I'm not going to convince a literal 15 year old whose entire shtick is "LOL dumb racist hicks".

To address the topic, Dems don't need to win rural whites outright to win elections. They just need to avoid losing them by Saddam margins. It would be insane to expect Dems to win rural whites outright, because like blacks with Dems, the interests of rural whites very clearly lie with Republicans. Thus Dem outreach to rural whites is kind of like GOP outreach to blacks - it's about narrowing the margin of defeat - but much more fruitful because rural whites are a MUCH more elastic demographic than blacks. Losing rural whites 75-25 instead of 90-10 would improve Dem margins by 5-6 points in many states. Like many people have pointed out in this thread, local candidates de-emphasizing or taking a different approach than national DNC talking points on fossil fuels and guns would be a big step in the right direction for them.

Every election is like "Hey, I know I don't pay any taxes at all and in fact collect massive amounts of welfare, but the shtick by the far-right about how we need to stop "them gayz from having rightz" and "taking those welfare monies that should go to me". The lunahicks are voting against their own interest.

In my case I pay thousands of tax dollars every year, receive zero welfare or benefits, and am gay myself. Resistance to gay rights is a dead issue in all but the most homogenously evangelical places. The first two parts are true of almost everyone I know around here. Of the two (admitted) welfare cheats I do know personally, one is apolitical and one is a Democrat. Obviously anecdotes are not data, but it is one small data point against your facile claim.

Please, please, please, I beg you, grow up and gain some broader perspective on life. Your rank immaturity is showing.

I'm not talking about you. 29% of West Virginians receive Medicaid coverage- more than the 26% Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and not all of the 29% are Democrats. Over half don't pay income taxes.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

A major factor in the move by rural Ww/oC voters to the GOP has to do with the association of the moving of coal/manufacturing jobs with Democratic politicians, so as others have mentioned just interacting with them- even if it you lose them 80-20 instead of 85-15- could make a big difference nationally. I'm not talking about getting Andy Beshear margins in elections, I'm merely talking about improving to McGrath levels.