On Wisconsin's rural vote: Multiple reports suggest bad news for Democrats, who've gone unsupported by national party

This Politico story out of Wisconsin's 3d district is a sobering one for Democrats, suggesting that the open seat, previously held by Democrat will flip.  Here's an excerpt from Elena Schneider's story:  

Democrat Brad Pfaff is battling to hold onto a rural House seat in western Wisconsin that his party has represented for a quarter-century. But it’s feeling like a one-man fight.

The "one-man fight" echoes the theme I've written about throughout this election cycle:  Democratic candidates in rural places don't feel supported by the party's national infrastructure--and sometimes its state infrastructure, too. 

The Schneider story continues in that vein: 

National Democratic groups pumped little money into the district, leaving Pfaff largely on his own in territory that Democratic Rep. Ron Kind has held for years and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers carried as recently as 2018. Pfaff has been outspent by $1.1 million on TV, as Republican Derrick Van Orden is buoyed by a wave of GOP outside spending on his behalf.

The ramifications of Pfaff’s solo campaign reach far beyond a single House seat. The margins Republicans can rack up in rural America can balance out or overcome the edge Democrats build in suburban and urban areas.

In Wisconsin, that’s a worrying sign for Evers and Senate candidate Mandela Barnes — and for President Joe Biden or any other Democrats eyeing the 2024 presidential race. The trickle-down effects of Democrats’ struggles in rural Wisconsin — Biden lost Kind’s district by a slightly wider margin in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, even though he did better overall statewide and nationally — could also hurt party hopefuls running in the state races beneath Pfaff, as the GOP pushes for supermajorities in the state legislature.

“Especially on a statewide level or on a national level, every vote counts and every vote counts in every county,” Evers said in a phone interview with POLITICO during his school bus tour along the Mississippi River. “These folks care about basic Wisconsin values, and as long as you talk to them about [those values], they’re going to respond. Obviously, you’re not going to get every vote, but every vote you do get is an important vote.”

Here's a quote from Pfaff talking to the statewide implications of what is happening in the third district:

If I get washed away, it’s going to be very, very difficult for Tony Evers or Mandela Barnes to win this state. There are not enough Democratic votes in Milwaukee or in Dane County, which is Madison, for either one of them to get across the finish line. But that’s a decision that individuals higher than me have to make … but I know the Democratic Party needs rural voices.

Many of the Wisconsin details of the Politico story are reflected in another story, from a few weeks ago, by Wisconsin Public Radio.  It features a photo of Brad Pfaff walking through a milking barn.  Here's the lede for that story, which features a lot of farm flavor:

With just a few weeks left before the November election, Democratic congressional candidate Brad Pfaff stopped by Mahogany Dairy in rural Monroe County. As he walked the barns with the farm’s owner, Gary Weber, Pfaff asked about Weber’s milk rotation, what he uses in his feed mix and where he sells his cull cows.

Pfaff, who holds the state Senate seat covering all or parts of La Crosse, Monroe, Vernon and Crawford counties in southwestern Wisconsin, said he's gotten to meet a lot of farmers throughout his career. He was state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency office in Wisconsin during the Obama administration and later was appointed secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection by Gov. Tony Evers.

The story features these quotes from Pfaff:  

This is how I got involved in politics, quite frankly, is (with) people like Gary — just farmers, just my uncles and people in my community," he said. "I would go to different events with my parents, with my dad in particular. And I'd learn and ask questions, and people would say, "You should think about getting involved." 

You cannot use a broad brush when it comes to rural people, because rural people have all different thoughts and ideas and that's what makes it so neat.  But there's something that ... binds us all together, and that is our love for rural Wisconsin, and for our heritage and for our culture.