North Carolina’s rural and low-income voters are expected to have a significant impact on this year’s presidential election, directly challenging the misconception that individuals in rural and low-income areas lack interest in politics or have minimal impact on electoral results. Their increased involvement reflects the efforts of local civic engagement organizations, which actively work with and empower poor and rural communities to take part in the democratic process. “We know that if we can reach out to those that have not been spoken to, we can show them the difference that we can make when we come together,” said Wayne Wilhelm, one of the tri-chairs for the North Carolina chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign. “We’re going to wake up this sleeping giant; we are that swing vote that can make the difference.”¹

A study by the Poor People’s Campaign, an organization devoted to “A National Call for Moral Revival,” reveals that poor and low-income voters made up almost one-third of the total voting population in both 2016 and 2020, and even more in some battleground states in the South and Midwest. Overall, 50 million low-income individuals voted in the 2020 election.²

This voting bloc could swing elections if fully engaged. As microeconomist Rob Hartley argues in the 2020 Poor People’s Campaign report, the margins of victory or defeat in many states, especially swing states in the South, are much smaller than the 20 percent gap between the lower turnout rate of low-income and higher-income voters. For example, if there were one million low-income voters in a swing state, even a 20 percent increase in turnout would mean nearly 200,000 more voters showing up, compared to the 10,000–80,000 vote margins that decide victories. Still, despite their growing influence in elections, much of the potential power of rural and low-income voters remains untapped. Around 3.4 million poor and low-income North Carolinians were eligible to vote in 2020. However, one out of every three of those voters didn’t show up to the polls that year. Among the primary reasons for this lack of engagement is that they feel as though they are ignored, and their priority issues are not being addressed.

Ahead of this year’s presidential election, advocates with the Poor People’s Campaign are working to mobilize 15 million poor and low-income infrequent voters, encouraging them to vote based on policy demands and to follow through by ensuring that elected officials support policies that protect democracy and justice for poor and low-wage people. In Western North Carolina, organizers with the campaign have already held nine deep canvassing events and knocked on more than fifteen hundred doors in and around Asheville. Following the devastation of Hurricane Helene, the group has shifted to providing people-centered community care while calling for increased focus on rural areas and the implementation of election safeguards to ensure every voter has the opportunity to cast their ballot. In addition, the group recently announced the North Carolina Rise Up & Revival GOTV Tour, a statewide campaign that will focus on Eastern North Carolina to engage with poor and low-wage voters.³

A 2017 study found that the traditional tools of political outreach, like short phone calls, brief door-to-door canvassing, and TV ads, have a minimal effect on changing the mind of a typical voter. On the other hand, research has found that deep canvassing—extended, empathetic conversations with the goal of countering prejudice and shifting beliefs, done in person or by phone—can have profound impacts on the hearts and minds of potential voters. “We’re doing a modified form of deep canvassing,” says Evan Richardson, an organizer of the Western Circle of the NC PPC. “Mostly, we’re listening to people talk about the issues that impact them and then encouraging them to vote.”

Poverty is more concentrated in rural communities compared to other parts of the country, and organizers emphasize the importance of engaging with these communities in a way that understands this reality. Nearly 73 percent of counties with the lowest median income, and 76 percent of those with the highest percentage of people living in poverty, are located in the US Southeast and Southwest. About eighty of North Carolina’s one hundred counties are classified as rural, and another twelve as semirural. Wayne County, a rural county in Eastern North Carolina, is considered one of the poorest regions in the state. About 42 percent of residents live below 200 percent of the official poverty line. In addition, rural voters still encounter significant obstacles when trying to vote. According to the 2023 report from the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps by the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin, rural and small metropolitan counties have an average voter turnout rate of 65 percent, while the rate is 69 percent in the suburbs and larger metropolitan areas.⁴

Part of the turnout gap is due to insufficient civic infrastructure, such as broadband, recreational facilities, and public libraries. A study using data from the 2016 and 2018 midterms revealed that people with better internet access were more likely to vote, even after adjusting for demographic factors such as age and race. Restrictions on mail-in voting also have a disproportionate impact on rural voters, as half of rural polling sites serve an area greater than sixty-two square miles, compared to two square miles in urban locations. And the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene on Western North Carolina have exacerbated these issues, while adding new, unexpected burdens to the state’s election administration system. These disparities underscore the pressing need to tackle the challenges confronting rural communities and secure equal access to the voting process for all citizens.⁵

For years, Democratic politicians have neglected rural areas during elections, wrongly assuming they are unwinnable. Take the 2022 midterms, in which the North Carolina state Democratic party failed to nominate a candidate in forty-four state legislative races, leaving critical races in rural areas uncontested. This has perpetuated the misconception that only Republican candidates care about these communities, and that rural people all support the divisive politics of far-right campaigns that court white voters through the marginalization of people of color. The rural South includes some of the country’s most diverse and economically struggling communities. Refusing to recognize their needs because of a false narrative that blames rural voters for the extreme policies of the Trump administration only deepens the pain of already vulnerable people. Rural people want elected leaders who listen and understand their communities.⁶

This harmful cycle of political neglect has only deepened over time as Democratic candidates continue to struggle in rural areas. “We don’t see politicians, but every two years, every four years, they show up, and they talk a lot and what they say is good,” said Jacob Brooks of Ennis, North Carolina. “But nothing seems to happen.”⁷

This year’s elections present a unique opportunity for engagement, and advocacy organizations like the New Rural Project, Black Voters Matter, and Down Home North Carolina are emphasizing the importance of continued, focused, and long-term involvement within these communities. Their acknowledgment is based on the significant historical role played by small rural communities in the region as powerful drivers of democratic participation and political mobilization.

The belief that rural communities don’t participate in elections is based on harmful stereotypes that overlook the diversity of these populations. It is crucial to confront these discriminatory patterns and recognize the active and vital role rural communities play in our democratic process. In ten southern states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia—more than 20 percent of the rural population is made up of nonwhite racial and ethnic groups. In North Carolina, more than 30 percent of the state’s rural voting population is nonwhite.⁸

According to the 2020 census data, Latinos are one of the fastest-growing populations in rural, nonmetropolitan areas, and communities of color now account for nearly a quarter of all residents in these areas. This shift underscores the growing and evolving nature of rural communities and the importance of recognizing and embracing their diversity and political influence.⁹

North Carolina has the second-highest rural population of any state, following only Texas. It also holds the highest rural population among all the 2024 battleground states. While most rural counties in North Carolina still lean Republican, they also contribute to 15 percent of the state’s Democratic vote share. In recent elections, Democrats have become stronger competitors in rural areas of North Carolina, winning over some districts and narrowing the margins in others. The most recent Meredith Poll highlights North Carolina as a battleground state, with candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied at 48 percent each. In addition, the governor’s race between Josh Stein and Mark Robinson is set to be highly competitive.¹⁰

This year, organizing efforts have been more deliberate in their approach to interacting with rural communities, which played a crucial role in preventing a Republican “red wave” during the 2022 midterms. One notable example is the 2022 victory of Democrat Wiley Nickel in North Carolina’s highly contested congressional race. Observers highlighted the pivotal role played by voters from rural Johnston County, as well as rural areas in Wake, Harnett, and Wayne counties, in securing Nickel’s win. And in the race for North Carolina’s state House District 73 in rural Cabarrus County, Democrat Diamond Staton-Williams emerged victorious over Republican Brian Echevarria by a margin of 629 votes out of 27,587 cast. “Because rural North Carolina counties often ‘go red’ election after election, progressives often discount us as a lost cause,” Dreama Caldwell, codirector of Down Home North Carolina, wrote in an op-ed after that victory. “This election, however, we flipped the script. Small town and rural voters saved the day.”¹¹

Organizers from Down Home North Carolina collaborated with residents of the state’s rural areas, knocking on 35,000 doors and engaging in nearly eight thousand conversations within the district. For those who have lived and worked in rural areas of North Carolina for many years, some for their entire lives, this represents the result of years of effort—and a glimpse of what can be achieved when community and civic engagement infrastructure is effectively organized and well funded.¹²

Down Home is focused on grassroots organizing and deep canvassing, empowering individuals to understand and address the political issues in their communities. This year, the organization is working to inform rural voters about upcoming elections, zoning in on rural counties including Ashe, Alamance, Cabarrus, Chatham, Franklin, and Granville, among others. The group set a goal of knocking on more than 500,000 doors across more than twenty-five counties ahead of the November 5 election.¹³

Down Home is also focusing on organizing for abortion rights in rural areas after the state legislature implemented a law last year that reduces the time allowed for an abortion from twenty weeks to twelve weeks. According to polling from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, 66 percent of North Carolinians support abortion being legal in all or most cases, while only 9 percent believe it should be illegal in all cases.¹⁴

Since its founding in 2017, the organization has been a strong advocate for a year-round organizing approach in rural communities that is not dependent on campaign and election cycles. The organization argues that “deep canvassing is more than just a strategy—it’s a commitment to our community. Deep canvassing is essential to building a base of support for poor and working-class issues and is a proven way that reaches across divides and brings folks together across race, class, gender, and region.”¹⁵

The organizing efforts in North Carolina this election cycle serve as a clear reminder that the work of reconstructing American democracy starts from the bottom up. By changing how communities that have been overlooked are engaged in politics and by investing in and empowering rural communities in the South, we can strengthen their increasing influence in elections. This work shows the potential to rebuild democracy from the grassroots. Drawing inspiration from the enduring character and resilience of small rural communities, we can strive for a more inclusive and participatory democratic system. 

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Benjamin Barber is a writer and advocate who is heavily interested in voting rights, democracy, and southern history. He currently serves as the Democracy Program Coordinator at the Institute for Southern Studies and as a contributing writer for Facing South.

Header image: Beverly Falls, 64, a retired physician, at a reproductive rights rally in advance of the presidential election, Durham, North Carolina. Photo by Kate Medley.

NOTES

1. William J. Barber II, “The North Carolina Rise Up & Revival GOTV Tour,” Facebook, October 11, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/RevDrBarber/videos/513708444874829/.
2. Shailly Gupta Barnes, “Waking the Sleeping Giant: Poor and Low Income Voters in the 2020 Elections,” A Report from the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, October 2021, www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PPC_LIV_Report.pdf.
3. “The Long March Is Almost Here,” National Poor People’s Campaign Newsletter, September 2024, https://ppc-nc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/September-NCPPC-Newsletter.pdf; NC Rise Up & Revival GOTV Tour, North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Review, 2024, https://ppc-nc.org/nc-rise-up-revival-gotv-tour/.
4. Rebekah Barber, “The Deadly Intersection of Poverty, Race, and COVID-19,” Facing South, April 22, 2022, www.facingsouth.org/2022/04/deadly-intersection-poverty-race-and-covid-19#:~:text=The%20report%20also%20points%20to,in%20the%20Southeast%20and%20Southwest.
5. Amy Robinson, Hannah Schaller, Rafi M. Goldberg, and Edward Carlson, “Is a Digital Nation a Voting Nation? Using Survey Data to Examine the Relationship Between Internet Use and Voting in the United States,” TPRC48: The 48th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, January 4, 2021, available at SSRN, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3760187; “The Forgotten Voters: How Current Threats to Voting Hurt Rural Americans,” Secure Democracy USA, June 2022, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/618a6b5942c27629201019e3/t/62b47394e7006b54f847fa6e/1655993237983/Report+-+How+Current+Threats+to+Voting+Hurt+Rural+Americans.pdf; Veronica Degraffenreid and Kevin Moris, “Ensuring Access to the Ballot in the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” Brennan Center for Justice, October 4, 2024, www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/ensuring-access-ballot-aftermath-hurricane-helene.
6. Don Gonyea and Danny Hensel, “Democrats Are Trying to Win Over the Traditionally Red State of North Carolina,” NPR, June 17, 2023, www.npr.org/2023/06/17/1182941213/democrats-are-trying-to-win-over-the-traditionally-red-state-of-north-carolina.
7. Repairers of the Breach, “Unlocking a New Vote in North Carolina Fighting for Our Power and Democracy,” Press Conference, Facebook, October 20, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/brepairers/videos/571161908101478/.
8. Olivia Paschal, “The Rural South Defies Demographic and Political Stereotypes,” Facing South, June 16, 2017, www.facingsouth.org/2017/06/rural-south-defies-demographic-and-political-stereotypes; Justin Brown, “In North Carolina, Rural Minorities Are Forgotten Swing Votes,” Battleground, July 10, 2023, https://battleground.substack.com/p/2022-midterms-north-carolina.
9. Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter, “Growing Racial Diversity in Rural America: Results from the 2020 Census,” Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire, May 25, 2022, https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/growing-racial-diversity-rural-america-results-2020-census#:~:text=only%20non%2DHispanics.-,Source%3A%20U.S.%20Census%202020.,over%2018%20(Figure%202).
10. Michael Cline, “Making Sense of the New ‘Urban Area’ Definitions: US Census Bureau Alters What It Considers Urban Areas,” North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management, January 9, 2023, www.osbm.nc.gov/blog/2023/01/09/making-sense-new-urban-area-definitions#:~:text=At%203%2C474%2C661%2C%20North%20Carolina%20had,our%20urban%20population%20rapidly%20grew.; Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi, “Red, blue and purple counties: Here’s a look at NC voter registration data,” News & Observer, November 4, 2022, https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article268110142.html; “Latest Meredith Poll Illustrates N.C.’s 2024 Battleground States,” Meredith College, September 27, 2024, www.meredith.edu/news/latest-meredith-poll-illustrates-n-c-s-2024-battleground-status/.
11. Kayla Morton, “Wiley Nickel Defeats Bo Hines to Win NC’s District 13 Race for Congress,” CBS17, November 8, 2022, www.cbs17.com/news/political-news/hines-nickel-faceoff-in-states-district-13-race-for-congress/; Official General Election Results Statewide, 11/8/2022, North Carolina State Board of Elections, November 8, 2022, https://er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=11/08/2022&county_id=0&office=NCH&contest=1234; Dreama Caldwell, “This Election, Rural Voters Like Me Flipped the Script. We Saved the Say in NC,” Charlotte Observer, November 21, 2022, www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article268915517.html.
12. “Rural Organizing in North Carolina,” Down Home North Carolina, accessed October 16, 2024, https://downhomenc.org/.
13. The full list also includes Harnett, Iredell, Johnston, Nash, Person, Pitt, Rowan, Rockingham, Transylvania, Vance, Watauga, and Wilson counties.
14. “Abortion Views in All 50 States: Findings from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas,” PRRI, May 2, 2024, www.prri.org/research/abortion-views-in-all-50-states-findings-from-prris-2023-american-values-atlas/.
15. “Deep Canvassing: Building Bridges in a Divided Political Landscape,” Down Home North Carolina, accessed October 16, 2024, https://downhomenc.org/deep-canvass/.