Vice President Kamala Harris is bringing on a new campaign hire as part of her team’s push to clinch must-win states this fall by keeping former President Donald Trump from running up the score in rural counties.
Harris is tapping Matt Hildreth of the progressive Rural Organizing group as her rural engagement director, according to four people familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity to discuss the matter. Democrats have been hemorrhaging support in rural America for years, but making even a small dent in Trump’s steep rural margins could determine the outcome in battleground states that may be decided by razor-thin margins.
Hiring Hildreth, whose grassroots organization is already knocking doors for Harris and Democratic candidates across the country this fall, signals the campaign is looking to seriously expand a resource-intensive ground game to reach rural voters who could swing the election.
The Harris-Walz team doesn’t expect the ticket to flip many rural counties. But some of Harris’ top advisers have argued that simply losing by slightly fewer percentage points in these areas could help carry her and down-ballot Democrats to victory. In recent memos, the campaign has argued “the key to decreasing margins in rural areas is to show up and compete everywhere — which is exactly what we’re doing across the country.”
