And in the 2016 election, rural America abandoned Democrats, because they felt like Democrats had abandoned them. Democrats also knew that those voters didn’t make up the balance of power, or a path back to control of Congress. That was up to rural voters, especially the ones who’d voted twice for Barack Obama then given Trump his margins in the Rust Belt. “There just aren’t enough Democratic voters in our gerrymandered districts to help,” said Jerry Woolpy. “They’re killing us.”In a dozen conversations, Sawyer County voters who had abandoned Democrats in 2016 said they did not necessarily embrace the Republican platform.

Source: Washington Post February 08, 2017 17:13 UTC