We Beat the Trend, But Downstate Dems Don’t Give a Damn

by kenneth lee warner

After the election of 2021, I began reflecting on why it is that Republicans are beating the snot of Democrats in rural areas like mine despite the fact that voters are acting against their own self-interest.

But up here on the North Coast of America, we actually won.

I have been involved in over a hundred elections since I volunteered for George McGovern when I was 18 years old. Now, I’m 68 and have 50 years of experience.

I truly believe that the the way out of the mess we are in is to have ordinary people like you and me run for office.

Frankly, I’m too damn old.

But you’re not.

People have been asking me how I did it, and if I could write down some of my thoughts. So, here’s a few and I hope to follow-up with more. moments after the disastrous November 2nd election, I found over 30 articles in major newspapers, magazines and news-sites across the country announcing that the sky is falling for Progressives.

Headlines like these dot the news landscape like maggots on a discarded turkey carcass. They all spell doom and gloom for Democrats and their inability to resonate with rural voters.

Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties

Youngkin’s rural voter landslide sounds alarm for Democrats

Why Democrats Struggle With Rural Voters

Party Panicking as rural America turns on Biden’s Democrats

New York was no exception. Let’s be clear, in New York politics it’s widely known that anyone running statewide only needs to do well in NYC and Buffalo and they’re a shoo-in for election statewide. Consequently, most pols do a few obligatory stops in all the real estate in between and ignore most of the real people and real issues in the rural parts of the state.

No wonder rural voters are less than enthusiastic and local elections are plagued with low turnout.

I know, because I represented 23,000 square miles of it for two years as Upstate Political Director for New York’s Working Families Party. A daunting task on a good day.

What Progressive Dems fail to remember is that there’s a kind of electoral progression. A local Mayor gets elected as a county legislator, then an assembly member, then a senator, then governor and maybe a presidential candidate. Think George Pataki.

THESE TWO UPSTATE UPSTARTS BUCKED THE STATEWIDE TREND FOR DEMOCRATS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. THIS LOGO WAS REPEATED COUNTLESS TIMES ON SOCIAL MEDIA, LAWN SIGNS AND DIRECT MAIL PIECES.

Local elections matter.

Now, the sky is falling and mid-terms are going to be a Republican shot heard round the world that heads straight to the heart of bleeding liberal Democrats.

The tragedy of November 2nd, 2021 brought back the morning after the presidential election of 2020 to PTSD afflicted Dems everywhere.

That is everywhere except here, on the North Coast of America on Lake Ontario in the Cayuga County communities of Sterling and Victory.

That’s right, a town named Victory.

You may not know Cayuga County politics, and perhaps with reason … there’s not much to know on the surface other than the fact that everyone elected in the northern portion of the county is a Republican. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that it is the home of Harriet Tubman, William Seward and was once part of the heartbeat of radicalism that gave women the right to vote thanks to nearby Rochester neighbor Susan B. Anthony and many Cayuga County & City of Auburn residents.

It’s been a generation since a Democrat was elected to the local Town Council of Sterling — a woman to boot — the first — but it happened. And, another young 34 year old woman with no political experience, still a “newcomer” to a town where you don’t become a “local” until you’ve lived here 20 years, came within 6 ½ points, about 60 votes — of beating the local mayor in a race for the County Legislature District covering Sterling and Victory, scaring the shit of him for the first time in his career as a professional politician and sending shockwaves throughout the county.

Running together as the “Dynamic Duo”, they worked tirelessly throughout the year, got designated as Democratic candidates, passed petitions to start their own ballot line called Preserve and Protect Our Water (PAPOW) and started raising money.

This is Trump country. Half the voters are registered Republican or Conservative. 25% aren’t affiliated with any party, and the remainder are Democrats who are as scarce as saloons in Tehran.

Everyone told them the race was unwinnable and was doomed to failure.

Yet, these two novices pulled it off.

To start with, the state Democratic Party didn’t do them any favors by putting “voter protection props” on the ballot that even lawyers didn’t understand and that were championed by the state’s Conservative Party as pure unadulterated evil. And yes, the people they were running against are so far to the right their cars don’t even turn left so that these issues resonated large. Add to it that, bumbling on the part of Washington Democrats provided another hurdle for those running on the Democratic Party line.

The question is … how did two politically inexperienced, political newbies buck the trend?

The answer is found in old fashioned retail politics. Doors. Phones. Mail. Standing for something. Facing reality. Raising money 20 bucks at a time. Not lying. Talking about issues that people care about.

Frankly, people around here aren’t exactly worried about Afghanistan, supply chains, critical race theory, Elon Musk going to the moon, or Bitcoin. No-one really gives a crap about Texas and abortion rights because a lot of families have a loved one who has had one. After all, we live in NYS. And, they sure don’t want to hear one more problem with Georgia, Arizona or Virginia’s governor for that matter.

And, last but not least, they don’t care about a congressional fight over issues that should have been taken care of 50 years ago and that what they view is a bunch of rich, entitled senators and congressmembers can’t seem to agree on.

Consequently, what they do care about is access to health care, rampant drug addiction among their kids, internet that works and doesn’t cost a fortune and the fact that another Dollar Store wants to move in, sell us more Chinese garbage and run the local general store out of business. And, since the community is on the shoreline of the greatest fresh-water system in the world, they care about the environment, keeping the pollution under control and making sure mega-business doesn’t come in and steal their precious resource.

Albany and Washington Democratic Party politicians need to face reality if they want to win in rural New York. But it isn’t rocket science. They simply need to start caring about the issues real people care about.

Remember dancing like it was 1999? Well, these two local candidates campaigned the same way.

Because these young women actually talked about issues, and were in genuine contact with their neighbors, they increased voter turnout by 30%, declared victory and got down to business.

Want to know how to win back rural voters? Pay attention to what these women did and what others like them did across the nation.

Get your collective heads out of each other’s butts, listen and work.

Republicans actually get it. Democrats don’t give a damn. It looks like this all across the United States. But the reality is until Democratic Party leaders from all sides of the spectrum start paying attention to local elections and the people who vote in them, Dems aren’t going to save democracy or the country. Then the sky will really fall and doom us all to live in a world shaped by Texans with AR-15s and cowboy hats.