Democratic Rural Leaders Expose Harms Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda Would Inflict on Rural Families as Key States with Significant Rural Populations – Including Georgia and North Carolina – Kick Off Early Vote

Today, the DNC hosted a press call highlighting the damage that Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda would impose on rural America. The call featured former Georgia state Senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton, DNC Rural Coalitions Director Bre Maxwell, and Wisconsin farmer and small business owner Dylan Bruce to discuss how Trump’s Project 2025 agenda would harm rural families. 

Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda would gut checks and balances and devastate rural communities across America. Not only does Trump’s Project 2025 agenda include plans to slash farmers’ safety nets, tear away crucial investments in rural connectivity and infrastructure, and worsen health care access for rural communities across the country – it would also defund public schools and eliminate child care rural communities depend on.

Find highlights from the press call below: 

“When I was in the State Senate, when I ran for Governor, both my grandfathers were also in the state Senate and represented rural areas from North Georgia and South Georgia. Of course, my one grandfather is a farmer in a peanut warehouse in Southwest Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Those rural roots and the reason he got into politics are the same reason that I got into politics–which is to help regular people, without distinction between urban and rural, but too often over the last several decades and really longer, you’ve seen, especially in Georgia, the rural community get left behind again and again,” said former Georgia state Senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter. “And what we have now in this election is an opportunity to do two things: one is to have the political parties engage rural voters in a real way, and that is incredibly valuable. In fact, if you look at Donald Trump’s actual agenda, the damage that it would do to rural Georgia is enormous and stands in stark contrast to what you have seen over the last several years, which is an unprecedented investment in rural America and particularly in rural Georgia.”

“We can already see the impacts of MAGA Republicans’ Medicaid attacks: In states where Republicans have blocked Medicaid expansion, like our neighboring state of Georgia, rural hospitals have closed, severely limited emergency care access, or slashed specialist care, like OB/GYN care, due to lack of funding. A majority of the more than 5 million women of reproductive age without easy access to obstetric providers live in rural communities,” said North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton. “This is Donald Trump’s legacy. In states with abortion bans like mine, because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, women cannot access the care they need. Since 2022, report after report continues to confirm states with abortion bans are experiencing worsening – sometimes deadly – health outcomes. Data also shows medical residents are now avoiding states with abortion bans – exacerbating existing health care provider shortages in rural communities.” 

“Now, I want to make clear, Donald Trump’s agenda exemplified by Project 2025’s anti-farmer policies is nothing new — every single year he was in office, Trump pushed massive cuts to USDA and sided with special interests over small farmers. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to distance himself from Project 2025 or claims to disavow it, because he already proved with his actions that he doesn’t care about farmers and rural communities,” said Wisconsin farmer and small business owner Dylan Bruce. “Somehow, Trump still has the audacity to insult our intelligence with ad after ad filled with lie after lie after lie. But farmers in Wisconsin and across the country remember those days. We refuse to let Trump pull the wool over our eyes with empty promises aimed to distract America’s farmers and rural communities from the truth about their plans to tear away our financial security and rip away our shot to compete with the big guys.” 

“As Democrats, we know it is our job to communicate our winning message to all voters, including those in rural communities. Vice President Harris, Governor Walz and the Harris-Walz coalition have led that example – showing up in rural communities across the country to bring our positive vision directly to rural voters,”  said DNC Rural Coalitions Director Bre Maxwell. “There is a clear choice in this election for rural Americans and all Americans – Donald Trump and JD Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would devastate rural communities – closing hospitals, driving costs skyhigh, dismantling public education and child care, and leaving our farmers in the dust. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have a different vision – one where every community can thrive regardless of where they show up on a map.”