A Democratic candidate recruitment group is pledging to pour $12 million into rural organizing in an effort to make inroads in red America and to lay groundwork for 2028, the organization shared first with Morning Score.
The investment by Contest Every Race in rural areas marks an expansion of the group’s grants program, which gave $1.2 million to local parties in 2024 but has seen a surge in donor interest in the second Trump administration. The group’s grant program, which has given to local parties in 29 states since 2021, is now expanding nationwide in what it casts as the “largest long-term, volunteer-powered organizing initiative aligned with the Democratic Party.”
The investment comes as Democrats for years have struggled in rural swaths of the country, a problem compounded by Donald Trump’s appeal to working class voters and Democratic messaging some in the party have argued is out of touch. The program — in which local parties typically receive at least $600 a quarter from Contest Every Race — involves tiny sums of money. But it also provides monthly trainings and free texting services, which can go a long way for small, mostly-volunteer parties in rural areas.
The group has applications for money from 1,200 local parties across all 50 states — nearly three times the number of local parties the group worked with in the run up to 2024. It said it will work in as many as possible, though battleground states will be prioritized.
“Democrats’ recent wins in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Wisconsin didn’t happen by accident — they’re the result of relentless, year-round local organizing in places national Democrats too often ignore,” said Zoe Stein, Executive Director of Contest Every Race, in a statement.
The group is aiming to boost Democrats and recruit candidates for the 100,000 local elections across the country in 2025, while also building a foundation in rural areas that could boost turnout in the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.
One rural Democratic party said the group’s support helped them boost the number of candidates on the ballot. In 2023, Democrats in Union County, Pennsylvania, had only 10 candidates on the ballot in municipal elections, according to chair Shari Jacobson.
Last year, there were Democratic candidates running in almost every race in the area, she said, and this year, 29 Democrats are running in local elections, said Jacobson, who added that Contest Every Race was crucial to meeting that mark.
“Almost every single voter in Union County had someone to vote for for every single seat,” Jacobson said.
While those candidates didn’t all win, Vice President Kamala Harris made gains in the county over President Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers, and having locals on the ballot helped drive voter turnout, Jacobson said.
“We’re playing a long game,” she said. “It’s not gonna happen overnight.”
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