Senator Jon Tester on Democrats and Rural Voters: Our Message Is Really, Really Flawed – The New York Times

I can go into the list of things that might be insane about this president, but the truth is that rural people connect more with a millionaire from New York City than they do with the Democrats that are in national positions.

So that tells me our message is really, really flawed, because I certainly dont see it that way.

We do not have a what do I want to say a well-designed way to get our message out utilizing our entire caucus. So we need to do more of that. You cannot have Chuck Schumer talking rural issues to rural people; it aint gonna sell. And quite frankly, I dont know that you can have Jon Tester go talk to a bunch of rich people and tell them what they need to be doing.

Some Democrats believe they are never going to establish a durable Senate majority because of the nature of every state having two senators and the partys difficulties with rural voters. When you hear that, does that tick you off?

Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does.

Why?

Because the problem isnt that the countrys skewed against the Democrats; the problem is that the Democrats have not done a very good job talking about what we believe in.

If theres one mistake that is made way, way, way too often by folks in public service, its that you walk into a room and who does most of the talking? The senator.

Now, some forums thats what the people want. But for the most part if youre in a town hall, and you let people tell you what theyre thinking, let them tell you whats going on and then search into your mental database to find out if theres anything that weve done to help solve that problem then maybe you can have a conversation. But to walk in and say, You need to think this, and this is what I believe is the right thing to think, that switch goes off.

In 2008 Barack Obama cracked 40 percent of the vote in a lot of rural America. Flash forward 12 years and Joe Biden is in the 20s in some of these counties. At this time 10 years ago, South Dakota had one Democratic senator, North Dakota had two, Montana had two. What has happened in about 10 years time?

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Senator Jon Tester on Democrats and Rural Voters: Our Message Is Really, Really Flawed - The New York Times