The News
Last year, Democratic strategists resurrected the Dirt Road Democrats PAC, a group built to help the party in rural areas where it had been wiped out. This month, two Democrats who saw that firsthand joined the PAC for its 2024 reboot: Brandon Presley, who narrowly lost the 2023 race for governor of Mississippi, and Chris Jones, who lost Arkansas’ 2022 gubernatorial race but outran other Democrats on the ticket. They talked with Americana about what they lived through, and what they want to do to rescue the party, and this is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Q&A
Americana: What knowledge do you bring to this that the average Democrat in a suburb somewhere doesn’t know?
Brandon Presley: We went to places that hadn’t seen a candidate for governor, ever — quite frankly, places that a lot of Democrats thought they should write off. Forrest County, Miss., is a good example. It hadn’t voted for a Democrat for governor since 1979, and we flipped it. We did it by showing up and giving a little bit different perspective. You just can’t ignore people into voting for you. That’s a dumb political playbook.
Chris Jones: I went to all 75 counties at least three times, and what I heard was, Democrats hadn’t been around here for decades. No politician had been around in forever. The number of people that we were able to persuade and convince was amazing. And my opponent, Sarah Sanders, ended up underperforming every other statewide Republican. She spent $18 million on a race in a red state where she had 100% name recognition, and the President and a former governor were behind her.
Americana: Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democratic governor for a long time; Arkansas turned to the GOP a little more recently. What reasons were you finding when you’d met people who were done with Democrats? If they used to be Democrats, why’d they leave?
Chris Jones: The beauty of Dirt Road Democrats that we can support infrastructure for state parties that hasn’t been deployed in quite a while. And then and when we support infrastructure, and we show up, that’s where the difference happens. When I ran my race, Arkansas Democrats fielded the smallest number of state legislative candidates in probably over two decades — maybe ever. When you don’t have candidates on the ballot, and you don’t give people a choice, then they don’t exercise their vote. I also found that small town newspapers simply weren’t hearing from us at all. So, I started writing a weekly column in the smallest of newspapers across the state.
Brandon Presley: There’s a city in Mississippi, Horn Lake, that President Biden carried with almost 60% of the vote. In the last couple of mayoral elections, Democrats didn’t field candidates for every seat there. That’s not respecting the voters.
Americana: What did you actually run on that seemed to connect?
Brandon Presley: Medicaid expansion, cutting the sales tax on groceries, opening up government to the people, cutting car tags — those were kitchen-table issues that actually have an effect on people’s lives. Look, I’m sick and tired of people acting as if Democrats aren’t tax cutters. I cut property taxes twice as a mayor, I voted against more rate increases as a Public Service Commissioner than anybody in state history. And after the election, we came very close to passing Medicaid expansion in some form in Mississippi, through the Republican legislature. That is a direct effect of showing up talking to people.
Chris Jones: I heard some of the same concerns from people — hospitals closing, broadband access. But we were also battling a combination of misinformation and no information. The Republicans are putting out all sorts of crazy information about Democrats and we’re not there to combat it. I had a conversation with a lady, who was so sincere when she told me that Democrats sacrifice babies and worship Baal. You know, I kept talking, and by the end of the conversation, she had changed her tone. But when you ignore people they get sucked into misinformation.
Americana: Well, a lot of the national Democratic message right now is about abortion and choice, which plays very well in metropolitan and suburban areas. But that voter sounds like someone who sounds pretty happy with the abortion status quo in Arkansas.
Chris Jones: It’s less about shaping a particular message and more about supporting candidates and organizations that are going to show up. Bill Clinton gave me some advice. If there are five hot topics, you should avoid three and only talk about two. Let people know where you stand, how you feel, and what you believe in, because they’ll show up if you’re honest with them.
Americana: You’re trying to convince more people to make the jump and run for office; one factor weighing on people is that they’d be running with Biden, who isn’t popular. So what would be your advice to candidates worried about the drag on the ticket?
Chris Jones: I was just thinking about this the other day. There was a big announcement here about $23 million of investments in a nursing program. It was an amazing resource. And at the announcement, the governor had a big check with her name on it, and no mention that the money came from the Biden administration. A lot of great things have happened, but if you’re not directly talking to people, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to build for the long-term and you’ve got to start early.