Houston Chronicle takes up Texas' rural voters in wake of party's Democratic convention last weekend

I wrote about this issue a few weeks ago after Texas Monthly published a big feature, and now Jasper Scherer for the Houston Chronicle is making some.of the same points in a story about the Texas Democratic Party's convention last week.  

[R]ural Texas remains a bulwark for Republicans as their support continues to erode in urban counties and the fast-growing suburbs. Statewide Democratic nominees, acknowledging they can’t afford such lopsided rural losses, insist they’re making a more concerted push this year outside the cities. They’re focusing their messaging in rural areas on less partisan issues, including shoring up the state power grid, building more rural hospitals, preventing private school vouchers and expanding broadband access.

The story quotes David Currie, chair of the Texas Democratic Party's "Non-Urban/Rural Caucus."   (Would love to hear the story behind that name and what it includes)

The Republican branding has been incredibly effective, that Democrats want to take your guns, that Democrats are not people of faith.  I like to talk about four things: education, health care, jobs, and Jesus. The Democratic Party gets labeled as a secular party, and I just don't think that's true. There's a lot of us that are here, because our faith says this is the way we can work with government to help people.

 Back to the recent Texas Democratic Convention, where delegates again elected  Gilberto Hinojosa of Brownsville, who has been chair since 2012.

Hinojosa’s main challenger, retired Air Force colonel Kim Olson, contended that the party has poured too many of its resources into cities and, in doing so, neglected rural areas where Democrats are struggling to recruit down-ballot candidates or even elect local party chairs.

At a meeting of the Non-Urban/Rural Caucus Friday, Hinojosa acknowledged the state party hasn’t provided enough support to local chairs and party activists outside the cities and suburbs, though he attributed part of the failure last election to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Not that I haven't tried, but maybe I haven't tried hard enough,” Hinojosa said.

* * *

Currie, a former chair of the Tom Green County Democratic Party, has also encouraged candidates — especially those with less spending power than O’Rourke — to promote their campaigns on the small radio stations and newspapers in rural communities, where ad space is affordable.

The rural weeklies, take a half-page ad out. They don't cost anything,” Currie said. “In San Angelo, you could get a minute commercial on Spanish radio for $10. They ought to be running those things all over the Spanish communities, the rural communities. … Everybody out there, they’re listening to those little country radio stations.

I found this interesting because it's what Matt Barron, a Democratic consultant specializing in rural races, has talked about as a no-brainer, in part because this sort of outreach is so inexpensive. 

But even with a more aggressive effort, cutting into the GOP’s rural dominance poses a challenge to Democrats, who will have to overcome President Joe Biden’s woeful approval among rural voters — and the deeply entrenched antipathy toward Democrats in those areas, built over years of political neglect.

Early Texas polls, however, have found O’Rourke and other Democrats are within striking distance of their Republican foes... And some Democrats said they have found rural voters — including Biden skeptics — are willing to hear them out, especially if they’re running for positions that are less partisan in nature.

Read the rest of the story for the cool idea of a "rural dance hall tour" from the Democratic candidate for land commissioner.