Politico reports:

Vice President Kamala Harris is circulating her first detailed goals for rural America in a bid to woo voters the party has been hemorrhaging support among for decades — and who will help determine the outcome of the November elections.

The new document is the furthest Harris has gone in her career to outline how she would approach policy for rural communities and comes as her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who has been tapped as a sort of special envoy to more rural areas of battleground states in the final sprint, is set to visit Wausau, Wisconsin, Friday. Harris herself is venturing into some of Pennsylvania’s largely rural, red counties Friday as part of her battleground blitz over the next few days.

As part of her broad plans, the campaign promises significant new federal investment for rural communities under a Harris-Walz administration and warns that Trump’s policies “will leave rural America behind,” according to the new two-page outline obtained by POLITICO. The document, like similar campaign materials, is meant to help engage and organize voters on the ground with just weeks to go.

The campaign’s new rural outline also pledges to scale up programs to help rural communities access federal funding while expanding small-business financing and other aid. It also attempts to beef up Harris’ limited ties to agriculture and small-town voters, with the document noting both she and Walz are from top agricultural-producing states and “that rural communities are essential to the success and character of our nation.” Harris has yet to release a full policy platform for rural communities, as some Democrats are pressing the campaign to do. Her campaign said the new document isn’t a whole new policy plan for rural America, but is part of their aggressive rural organizing efforts. [Continue reading…]