How can Dems improve with rural whites?

[Schiff for Senate]

To give a serious response, actually visiting rural areas would be a good start. Showing that you care doesn't mean changing your views to be in complete agreement, since it's not like Republican politicians have zero disagreements with rural voters. Doing what some Indiana Democrats are currently doing, and not just focusing on the largest urban or suburban areas, but heading out to small towns, including some of the less densely populated areas of "blue" counties, and just listening to voters. They don't have to make their views seem identical to rural voters, simply have a conversation and try to reach some of them.

Putting more focus on economic issues is a good idea in general, but doing that while only focusing on cities isn't going to be particularly effective. Proving that they care about all voters, and pushing back against the "elitist cancel culture" optics is what they should be doing.

Good answer. They should also generally be more 'populist' and appeal to economic anxieties (as you said) - by emphasizing they want higher taxes on the ultra-rich, but not the middle class (I believe this is the case). As MT Treasurer probably would have/has said, Jon Tester's a pretty good example - since he's populist and he 'cares', he wins a good percentage of rural whites while not being much to the right of the average Democratic politician. Having said that, as I told MT Treasurer, white rural voters nationally aren't as appreciative of Tester's 'prairie populism' as their MT counterparts are.

[Schiff for Senate]

Abandon all of their current economic and social policies.

I think Democrats could actually win rural whites by changing just their social views and rebranding their economic message. They need to brand it and make it populist and emphasize they want LOWER, not higher taxes, on the lower- and middle-classes, and want higher taxes only on the ultra rich. Emphasize that they are globalist (it'll help in the Rust Belt). Call for a higher minimum wage. And yeah, drop all or most of their social views.

[Schiff for Senate]

Abandon all of their current economic and social policies.

I think Democrats could actually win rural whites by changing just their social views and rebranding their economic message. They need to brand it and make it populist and emphasize they want LOWER, not higher taxes, on the lower- and middle-classes, and want higher taxes only on the ultra rich. Emphasize that they are globalist (it'll help in the Rust Belt). Call for a higher minimum wage. And yeah, drop all or most of their social views.

The problem is that a lot of the social views that would need to be dropped are things like police reform, trans rights, supporting refugees(Biden is being terrible on this though), and not being horrible to undocumented immigrants. Also lowering taxes on the middle class is a terrible idea.

Obviously, the policy change would cost a lot of votes as well, and it's quite possible Democrats would lose more votes than they gain, with the trade off hurting them.

[Schiff for Senate]

Abandon all of their current economic and social policies.

I think Democrats could actually win rural whites by changing just their social views and rebranding their economic message. They need to brand it and make it populist and emphasize they want LOWER, not higher taxes, on the lower- and middle-classes, and want higher taxes only on the ultra rich. Emphasize that they are globalist (it'll help in the Rust Belt). Call for a higher minimum wage. And yeah, drop all or most of their social views.

If they only wanted to win rural whites, then yeah. They have to say "me too" whenever a Republican talks about the importance of the Second Amendment, how concerned they are about schools being brain washing centers, their "freedom" and "religious freedom", how unreasonable and dangerous transgenderism and homosexuality is, how Life begins at Conception, basically everything dealing with buttressing the power of the Churches, and how the power of Law Enforcement takes precedence over Civil Rights and Liberties. Then just rebrand the rest of their agenda in a better way by talking about ending insurance rate hikes, grocery taxes, and raising wages, even if the very wealthy have to pay more and accept slightly lower profits.

But luckily Democrats don't need to win them. If they can turn a 3.5:1 electorate into a 2.5:1 electorate out of them, that probably wins North Carolina and Florida, and might give them a chance at Ohio and Iowa again. Maybe they could be competitive downballot in the rural west again outside of major coal/oil areas if they rebranded the economic stuff and simply stopped pushing on issues that they went from not acknowledging in 2014 to jumping totally onboard of in 2022. In certain areas, it totally makes sense to be conservative or libertarian on certain issues. In a place like Ocala or Eastern Kentucky, it makes sense to run as being extremely hawkish on abortion or in a place like Boebert's district running as extremely liberal (not progressive) on guns.

I know. I'm not saying that Democrats should or need to make the change, or that they need to win rural whites at the expense of their current base. I'm just attempting to answer the OP's question.