Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.
Just 20 years ago, two Democratic senators represented both North Dakota and South Dakota — including the party’s Senate leader. Each state also boasted a Democratic House member. Nebraska had a Democratic senator and only a few years earlier had two. Today, those states are represented in Congress entirely by Republicans.
...
“Democrats are increasingly perceived as elite and focused almost exclusively on urban matters,” said Tom Daschle, a former South Dakota senator who served as both minority and majority leader before being narrowly defeated in 2004. “Rarely do national Democratic candidates spend time in rural America, and that ‘flyover’ perception continues to increase the perception of this divide.”
The disconnect is as much cultural as political.
“These are interior states, and a lot of people in the interior don’t trust the elites on the coasts,” said Mr. Baucus, who served as the U.S. ambassador to China after leaving the Senate. “They feel kind of put upon and that nobody cares.”
...
Then there’s the fact that Mr. Tester is trying to win a fourth term in a state that has moved sharply to the right. Unlike other rural states, Montana’s evolution has been fueled not by an exodus of voters, but by a steady influx of new conservative residents who are much more aligned with the MAGA movement. Democrats worry that these voters are unflinching Republicans who are strongly supportive of Mr. Trump and are not familiar with or interested in Mr. Tester’s long history in the state or Montana’s tradition of political independence.
“They don’t know Jon, and they are Republicans,” Mr. Baucus said.
