Author Jerry Hagstrom, The Hagstrom Report, reports:
The Harris-Walz campaign rolled out its agenda for rural America on Tuesday, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic candidate for vice president, highlighting the rural agenda on a farm in Pennsylvania and with the Democratic National Committee holding a press call with Jason Carter, a grandson of former President Carter and others.
The fact sheet distributed by the Harris-Walz campaign emphasizes improving health care with measures such as dealing with “ambulance deserts,” improving the rural economy and aiding smaller farmers. The fact sheet also contains a range of links to studies and articles and maintains that, in response to the export losses caused by retaliatory tariffs in response to the tariffs that Trump imposed on imported manufactured goods, Trump aided only the biggest farmers. (See link.)
Walz unveiled the agenda at Telesz Farms in Washington County, Pa. He was “decked out in a red-and-black checked flannel shirt and a ball cap,” Trib Total Media, a Pennsylvania news outlet, reported.
“This is about trying to figure out how do we bring this country back together, and there’s no better place than being on a third-generation family farm,” Walz told about 100 spectators, Trib Total Media reported.
Walz spoke against a backdrop of hay bales, pumpkins, cornstalks and a big blue banner that read “Rural voters for Harris-Walz,” Trib Total Media said.
The Harris-Walz campaign said Walz planned to participate in a series of rural radio interviews in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia “to discuss the new policy proposals, as well as his own background as someone who was born and raised in a rural community.”
The Harris campaign also launched a new radio ad targeting rural voters, “Like Us,” featuring Walz, to run on 535 rural radio stations across Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina, reaching over 2.15 million battleground state rural voters who live outside of major cities and suburban counties.
The campaign also announced Walz will campaign with President Clinton on Thursday in North Carolina on the first day of voting in that state, and next Tuesday with former President Obama in Wisconsin on the first day of voting in that state.
On the DNC press call, Carter, a former Democratic Georgia state senator who ran for governor in 2014, said that Trump “has fed nothing but a hot-air cultural message” to rural America.
Carter also said that Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda from which Trump has distanced himself, “will devastate schools, eliminate Head Start.”
Carter emphasized the Biden-Harris administration’s expansion of rural broadband and other infrastructure projects, while North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said that the rural areas of her state had made “historic gains” under the Biden-Harris administration. Trump and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the Republican candidate for vice president, would repeal the Affordable Care Act and cause the cost of insulin to soar, she said.
Wisconsin farmer Dylan Bruce praised Biden for taking a strong position fighting monopolies while Trump “is siding with big corporate business” and is of the “get big or get out” farming viewpoint. Bruce also said Trump “treats farmers like we are hayseeds and we are stupid.”
Although the rural agenda is being released only three weeks before the election, DNC Rural Coalitions Director Bre Maxwell said the DNC has been active in all 50 states, not just the battleground states.
- Harris-Walz campaign fact sheet – Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz’s plan for rural communities
- Associated Press – Walz unveils Harris’ plan for rural voters as campaign looks to cut into Trump’s edge
- Trib Total Media – Walz rallies at Acrisure Stadium, visits Lawrence County family farm in swing through Western Pa.
- American Progress – Project 2025’s plan to gut checks and balances harms rural America
- C-SPAN – Gov. Tim Walz campaigns in Volant, Pa.
- YouTube – “Like Us” radio campaign ads