The campaign platforms of winning (or leading) candidates in red and purple states demonstrate a clear pattern: concrete economic issues of working and rural people were central.

In Kansas, Adam Hamilton’s “prairie populism” railed against the crushing costs of farming inputs, something Iowa’s Josh Turek also stressed. In Mississippi, Scott Colom emphasized the loss of labor and delivery departments in rural communities. Texas’s Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico both spoke out for rural schools against defunding and voucher programs. Keisha Lance Bottoms spoke openly about the rural-urban divide and her own roots in the Georgia countryside.

In South Carolina, Annie Andrews focused on kitchen table economics, rural healthcare and farmland preservation.