Spanberger makes inroads with rural Republicans unhappy with Trump

[LMAO]

Spanberger makes inroads with rural Republicans unhappy with Trump

The governor-elect deviated from past Democrats’ strategies by spending time in deep-red rural Virginia.

By Samuel Benson
11/06/2025 07:00 PM EST

Helping propel Abigail Spanberger’s dominant win in the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday are dissatisfied rural voters who have supported Donald Trump.

Spanberger’s victory was largely driven by massive turnout in northern and eastern Virginia’s urban areas. But she picked up support across the state’s deep-red central and western counties, where Trump’s tariffs have hit the manufacturing and agricultural industries especially hard. Even as her GOP opponent won most of those places, Spanberger posed the best performance by a statewide Democratic candidate in several cycles, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting data in the localities classified as “rural” by the federal government.

Rural voters are dissatisfied with economic conditions, including Trump’s erratic tariff threats that have impacted farmers throughout the country. The result was a rude awakening for some rural-state Republicans, who have long relied on large margins in these deep-red areas.

“Last night, honestly, was an awakening for a lot of folks,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) Wednesday. “If you don’t pick up on what really happened last night, the margin of victory … then I think you’re living in a cave.”

Spanberger outperformed Kamala Harris’ margin in 48 of Virginia’s 52 rural localities. And according to exit polling, she won 46 percent of rural voters — an 8-point deficit to Republican rival Winsome Earle-Sears, and a 19-point swing from 2021 Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s 27-point disadvantage.

And she accomplished that after emphasizing Trump’s tariffs on the campaign trail.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/06/democrats-spanberger-wins-rural-voters-00641266

[Hoodat]

Spanberger’s victory was largely driven by massive turnout in northern and eastern Virginia’s urban areas.

i.e. people who exist off of the $2 trillion in deficit money the federal government spends every year.

Balance the budget, and those people would no longer have the jobs that keep them there.

[LMAO]

This is the blueprint Democrats will follow next year

You won't see them run a Mamdani Democrats or squad democrats in states and congressional districts were Republicans are vulnerable. They'll run Democrats that will be acceptable to voters in swing districts. A swing district that is represented by a Republican would unlikely replace that person with Ilhan Omar, for example.

And they'll run on economic issues.

So the myth that Democrats can't be competitive in rural areas has now been put to bed