Remember Deborah “Renie” Gates, who ran for State Senator in Virginia? What about Brittany Gondolfi in Louisiana? Have you heard of Sandy Kerr in Mississippi? In 2023, these women ran as Democrats in rural, Republican-majority districts. None of them won, but each of them stood up to a right-wing establishment in an era when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) withholds resources from rural campaigns. This divestiture has left voter maps looking deceptively polarized: blue for big cit...
