Rural America is no fan of President Joe Biden and the Democrats. This is no secret. It's pretty much a given. Yet in a guest essay from last week for The New York Times, author Robert Leonard is trying to change that narrative by writing "Biden Has Already Done More for Rural America Than Trump Ever Did." The DNC promoted it that same evening in an email. Those are some strong words.
Leonard's first paragraph acknowledges how his main thesis is a moot one. "In 2020, Donald Trump won this state, and its governor and two U.S. senators are Republicans. Just one of Iowa’s four House representatives is a Democrat, and it has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2012," he pointed out.
When it comes to the Iowa Democrat Leonard is referring to, Rep. Cindy Axne, she was first telected in the blue wave of 2018, when she beat incumbent Rep. David Young, a Republican, with 49.3 percent to his 47.1 percent of the vote. She beat him again in a 2020 rematch, 48.9 percent to his 47.5 percent.
Axne is a target of groups such as the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a Super PAC which aims to elect Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. During a meet and greet last month, Rep. Axne claimed that Biden and Democrats are not to blame on inflation, a key issue for struggling Americans, which Leonard goes on to acknowledge in his piece.
As the CLF has also pointed out, Axne continues to downplay inflation, with claims that it's "false advertisements" and that "no economist worth their weight in salt" is looking at inflation. When she did acknowledge inflation was a problem, she nevertheless tried to deflect blame.
As for what Leonard thinks Biden and Democrats have done for Iowa, here's how he sees it:
In under two years in office, President Biden has done more for places like Guthrie County and other parts of rural America than Mr. Trump ever did. The rural economy is stronger, wages are higher and infrastructure projects are popping up all over.
Mr. Biden and his fellow Democrats are responsible for many of the improvements and for bringing back a sense of stability. For the midterms, they should run on these successes — the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill. And they should run on why they have worked: Democrats should run on Democratic values.
Mr. Biden promised to be a president “for all Americans.” He stressed building things and working with Republicans — and he has succeeded, most prominently on the bipartisan infrastructure bill (supported by our Republican senator Chuck Grassley).
...
It’s not all about what the president has done; some of his success is in what he has undone or cleaned up. Last May, Mr. Biden ended the ill-conceived Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which was intended to get provisions to families. Some families benefited, but it was unfortunately, at the height of the pandemic, a boondoggle. A new supply chain had to get the boxes from farmers to food banks that competed directly with local grocery stores. The program was mismanaged and used for political gain.
Leonard references the midterms, as if he has a hope it won't be too catastrophic for Democrats:
So will what President Biden has done for so many rural Americans improve the electoral fortunes of Democrats in places like Iowa? When it comes to the midterms, the problem is not really about Mr. Biden himself but about long-running trends, and the only way to alter those trends is to change the perception of Democrats on the national level.
This year, much of it will depend on what Democrats do before November, and how they engage. As I said, they should celebrate victories — like the American Rescue Plan, which supported a wave of spending on construction projects and programs across America. Too often, Democrats leave it to Republicans to set the agenda and frame issues, or blame conservative media.
He goes on to claim that "Democrats should be proud of what the party has been and is." Leonard closes his piece by noting Democratic values "can play everywhere, including in rural America. Run on those."
Rep. Eric Swalell (D-CA), as our friends at Twitchy highlighted on Sunday, gave Leonard's piece some more attention when he tweeted about it the following day.
Compared to the Trump years, we are all doing much better under @POTUS Biden. But that’s especially true in Rural America. Share this story to make sure we all understand the difference and impact. https://t.co/BygqSh6D9K
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 27, 2022
Again, Swalwell is from California, representing a district in the San Francisco suburbs. It's a very different scene from Iowa in so many ways, from voting habits to population, to culture. And the patronizing tone he takes on doesn't help.
Even with those examples that Leonard provides, and with the promotion from Swalwell, the polls and sentiment about Biden do not match the reality he seeks to create.
On Sunday, not long after Leonard's piece went up, Chuck Todd highlighted on NBC's "Meet the Press" part of a "Meet the Press Reports" episode, to do specifically with "How the Democratic Party Lost Rural America." As Todd put it, "the Democratic Party is simply hemorrhaging rural support."
NBC's Chuck Todd: "Democrats have increasingly lost support in rural America" as they lurch to the far-left.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 1, 2022
"The problem has not gone away — it's gotten worse [for Democrats]." pic.twitter.com/eWlFWBPsuU
He also highlighted the history of Democrats losing support in rural counties in the past few years.
NBC News on Sunday morning also published a piece by Dante Chinni, which asks "How long can Democrats keep losing rural voters and still survive?" Chinni points out that "the size of the rural vote shift in the last few decades, in particular, has been astonishing," also mentioning that "in rural areas, the Republican edge grows to more than 30 points.
As Leonard correctly points out in his piece, Trump won Iowa in 2016, with 51.1 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 41.7 percent, and then also in 2020, with 53.1 to President Joe Biden's 44.9 percent of the vote
Todd on "Meet the Press Reports" spoke with Brian Bruening, who chairs the Clayton County Democratic Party and said that "There was no way Biden was going to win Iowa in 2020. It just was not going to happen."
When it comes to a potential 2024 run for Trump, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll from last November, as I covered at the time, the former president was up 51 percent to Biden's 40 percent.
Last September, as we at Townhall also highlighted, another poll from Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa had Biden with just a 31 percent approval rating, while 62 percent disapproved.
When it comes to Biden's current approval rating in Iowa, 31 percent of registered voters approve while 59 percent disapprove.