“Talk like a good neighbor,” “do left-wing populism”: buoyed by Kamala Harris’ entry into the race for the White House, Democrats unveiled their formula in Chicago on Tuesday to win over voters in even the most rural areas of the country.
Never mind that the party traded President Joe Biden, who boasted to anyone who would listen about his middle-of-the-road roots, for a former senator from California, the richest state in the country.
“The secret is simply to talk to them about their schools, their roads, their health care,” says Laura Kelly, the Democratic governor of the very conservative state of Kansas.
“Come back, and not just for a photo shoot,” she tells an assembly of Democrats gathered for a panel on rural areas, regions that are largely unfavorable to them.
Seated in a ballroom at the convention, these activists and local elected officials are given a manual on how to “de-escalate” political debates in rural areas.
“Flag your events with patriotic references,” “this makes left-wing measures more attractive,” advises the document, issued by the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.
“Organise listening sessions”, “prioritise frank speaking”, he continues.
“Knock on doors”
The assembly, adorned with “Kowgirls for Harris” signs and other “goodies” bearing the image of the American vice president, listens religiously.
Democrats have never really recovered from the cold shower of 2016, when large sections of the rural and working-class electorate, historically won over to their cause, preferred Republican Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton.
They want to avoid the same rout in November at all costs.
“This is the first year that our party has been really proactive on this issue,” said Diane Snyder, a Democratic representative in a heavily Republican North Carolina county.
“We go knocking on doors and people are surprised to see us,” she told AFP.
The stakes are all the more crucial because his state, on the Atlantic coast, is one of six or seven that could decide the fate of the American presidential election on November 5.
The Tim Walz asset
But in this duel, Donald Trump continues to portray Kamala Harris as a “California socialist”, a member of an elite disconnected from the reality of people living in rural America.
A label that the vice-president sought to shake off by appointing Tim Walz, a sixty-year-old appreciated for his good nature and his frankness, to assist her in her campaign at the beginning of August.
The Minnesota governor will give his grand speech Wednesday, the third night of the Democratic convention.
Tim Walz “is so authentic” that he could be found at any village festival, cap screwed on his head, greets former senator Heidi Heitkamp before the assembly of Democratic activists.
“Unpleasant conversations”
“I think he brings some balance to the ticket,” said Patricia Walsh, a Democrat who lives in such a remote part of Alaska that she couldn’t get T-shirts honoring those candidates delivered in time for the convention.
And designed one herself instead.
In the middle of the day, Gwen Walz, the wife of Kamala Harris’ running mate, sneaks into the front row of this panel on rurality, to warm ovations from its participants.
The fifty-year-old praises the profile of her husband, whom she met in a school “in rural Nebraska”.
Before urging Democratic activists to convince “one by one” voters in the American countryside to choose Kamala Harris rather than Donald Trump.
“Bring a friend,” she says. “And be prepared to have some uncomfortable conversations.”