Janet Lynn Stumbo leaned on her cane as she looked over the small crowd of about two dozen voters who had come together in a small Appalachian town to meet with the chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party.
Stumbo, a 70-year-old former Kentucky Supreme Court justice, said the event was “the biggest Democratic gathering I have ever seen in Johnson County.” That’s notable since this is a place where Republican Donald Trump received 85% of the vote in the last presidential election.
Paintsville, the main town in the county, was the newest stop on the state Democratic Party’s “Rural Listening Tour.” This effort involves visits to mostly white, socially conservative towns where Democrats once had support but where Republicans now win by wide margins.
To win back power in the U.S. Senate or the presidency, Democrats may need to hold events like this in small towns, because it will be very difficult to succeed without more support from rural and smaller communities.
Recently, the party lost senators in states where many people live outside of cities, such as Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. At the same time, people are leaving Democrat-run states for southern states led by Republicans. Some experts believe this shift will lead to Democrats losing 12 Electoral College seats after the 2030 census.
“We stopped having these conversations,” said Colmon Elridge, the Kentucky Democratic chair. “People didn’t abandon the Democratic Party. We just stopped doing what we should have done.”
Democrats don’t need to win most rural white areas to do better in elections. The goal is to reduce the size of Republican victories in these places. Trump managed to cut into Democrats’ typical lead with Black and Latino men in 2024. Kentucky’s Democratic Governor, Andy Beshear, used this approach to win two statewide elections.
According to AP VoteCast, Trump won 60% of voters in rural areas and small towns in 2020 and increased that to 63% in 2024. This is very different from when Democrat Bill Clinton won counties like Johnson and took Kentucky’s electoral votes in both 1992 and 1996.
“We need to be serious about building something that lasts,” Elridge said. “We’ve won here before.”
Michelle Hackworth discusses U.S. politicsFrustration over Republican control and how Democrats are viewed
For two hours in downtown Paintsville, Elridge listened as Stumbo and others shared concerns about conservative policies, voiced disappointment about Trump’s popularity in eastern Kentucky, and spoke about their desire to present a different choice to voters. Many talked about their personal stories.
The meeting was part discussion, part venting, and part encouragement. The frustrations shared in Paintsville were similar to what Democrats are feeling elsewhere, though often for different reasons.
Sandra Music, a retired teacher who now calls herself “a new Democrat,” said she changed her party support because of Trump. She criticized Republicans for pushing private school voucher programs and said they are putting public education at risk — a system meant to give everyone a fair shot at learning.
Music said Republicans were misrepresenting Democrats. “They want to focus on certain words: abortion, transgender, boys in girls’ sports,” she said, to take attention away from other parts of their agenda.
Stumbo, the former justice, said she’s worried about how far to the right the courts have moved. “We are going to suffer damage we can’t undo,” she said, “if we don’t stop these conservative idiots.”
Michael Halfhill, who works in health care technology, couldn’t understand why people in Appalachia — one of the poorest parts of the country — would support a billionaire president.
“It’s not about left or right. It’s about rich and poor,” he said, frustrated that working-class white voters — 97.5% of Johnson County — were “voting against themselves.”
Ned Pillersdorf, Stumbo’s husband, criticized Republican plans for taxes and spending, especially possible cuts to Medicaid. He said Paintsville still has a rural hospital, which is one of the biggest employers in the area, largely because a Democratic governor expanded Medicaid in Kentucky under the 2010 health care law.
Elridge, Kentucky’s first Black state party chair, mentioned Trump’s attacks on diversity programs and civil rights protections.
“This is where Trump and MAGA are good at what they do — if someone like me is made to look like your enemy, then it doesn’t matter if the guy in the White House is doing you wrong and pretending it’s fine,” he said, referring to the former president’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.
Republicans say their view of Democrats is accurate
A “listening tour” is not supposed to result in immediate changes. Elridge and Nicholas Hazelett, a local Democratic leader and city council member in Paintsville, said the small audience was already on the Democrats’ side. Though a few attendees were new to the party, no one was there waiting to be persuaded.
Across the street, antiques shop owner Michelle Hackworth said she didn’t even know the Democrats were holding a meeting. She called herself a “hard-core Republican” and laughed when asked if she would have gone.
“They wouldn’t change my mind,” she said.
Paintsville Mayor Bill Mike Runyon, who describes himself as a conservative Republican and Trump supporter, brought up social and cultural issues when asked about politics in Johnson County.
Democrats, he said, “need to stop being so far-left — just look at the transgender topic.” He added, “Everything got too focused on race. It’s not like that here in Paintsville, but across the country, it’s causing more division.”
When asked who he meant specifically, he referred to U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina from New York, and Jasmine Crockett, a Black woman from Texas.
“It’s always the same ones you see on TV,” he said.
Mayor Bill Mike Runyon stands in his office and look at newspaper clippingsSupport for Beshear across political lines
Beshear appears to be one Democrat who earns praise even from those who usually vote Republican in and around Paintsville.
Democrats praised the 47-year-old governor for supporting abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights while still winning votes outside of major Democratic cities like Louisville, Lexington, and Frankfort. He didn’t win Johnson County but did get 37% of the vote there in his 2023 reelection. He carried several counties nearby.
Even Republicans, including the mayor, gave Beshear credit for how he handled floods and other emergencies.
“He’s been here,” Runyon said. “I can absolutely reach him if I need to.”
In 2024, Beshear was considered a possible vice presidential pick for Kamala Harris. He is still the top choice for Senate Democrats to run in 2026 when Mitch McConnell retires. Beshear, whose father lost to McConnell after serving as governor, has said he won’t run for Senate. But he has appeared more on cable news and started a podcast, leading to talk that he might run for president in 2028.
“Andy is not like those national Democrats,” Runyon said. Looking back to the 1990s, he added, “Bill Clinton wasn’t like today’s Democrats either.”
Hackworth, the antiques shop owner, said she voted against Beshear both times. Still, during a longer conversation, she too complimented his emergency response work. She also questioned some of Trump’s ideas, including wanting the federal government to stop giving out disaster relief.
She blamed President Joe Biden for hard times at her store but admitted that federal aid during the COVID-19 pandemic helped many people and small businesses.
Hackworth said she didn’t know much about the details of Medicaid expansion, but she named the local hospital as one of the top employers in the area. The others, she said, were the public school system and Walmart, which had just announced a price increase due to Trump’s tariffs.
While she supports Trump’s “America First” message, she said raising tariffs too much could upset shoppers. “You can walk through my store and see where the new stuff is made,” she said. “I try to buy American, but so much comes from China.”
When asked again if Democrats have any chance of winning people over in towns like Paintsville, she said, “Well, there’s always a chance if you show up.”