ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tonight, Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver the most important speech of her political career to date. Thousands of people will fill the arena here at United Center, with tens of millions more watching at home. One of Donald Trump's most common attacks on Harris is that she represents the most left-wing slice of America.
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DONALD TRUMP: You've got this radical-left person from San Francisco. How's San Francisco doing?
SHAPIRO: When you look at her history as a candidate, it is true that before she became vice president, Harris only ever won elections in solidly blue, liberal places. To win the White House, the Harris-Walz ticket will need to compete in purple, and even red, areas.
I asked delegates who live in more conservative parts of the country what they think Democrats need to do to reach those voters.
LEAH MIDGARDEN: It's so important for leaders to step up and say, let's take a step back, and let's recognize and take a moment to realize where we all have shared values.
CHRIS JONES: And really, the bottom line is showing up - and if she can show that I'm showing up and I'm listening and saying, I see you, I hear you.
BRE MAXWELL: Not only do we need to show up; we need to also make sure that we are meeting people where they are.
SHAPIRO: That’s Leah Midgarden of Minnesota, Chris Jones of Arkansas and Bre Maxwell of South Carolina. Maxwell is director of rural coalitions for the DNC. She says meeting people where they are means talking about the things that are important to them - not culture wars, but basic needs.
MAXWELL: We all deserve clean water, access to health care, making sure that K-12 education is funded, making sure that women have access to reproductive care.
SHAPIRO: And as she sees it, a lot of the work her party needs to do in red state America is unglamorous and invisible.
MAXWELL: Making sure that we are investing into coordinated campaigns in these states and making sure that we're investing into statewide voter registration.
SHAPIRO: It goes back to the idea of showing up. She says Democrats have not prioritized that in rural areas until now. And then there's the tone. Leah Midgarden was raised on a North Dakota farm and now lives in Red Wing, Minn., population 16,000.
MIDGARDEN: There's a real sense from rural people that we are looked down on by urban elites.
SHAPIRO: Speakers at the DNC seemed to get the memo. There was no talk of deplorables, as Hillary Clinton once put it in a speech, or people who get bitter and cling to guns or religion, as President Obama once said at a private fundraiser. Here's how Minnesota Governor Tim Walz talked about his upbringing in Nebraska.
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TIM WALZ: That family down the road, they may not think like you do. They may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors.
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WALZ: And you look out for them, and they look out for you. Everybody belongs.
SHAPIRO: For all the optimism and enthusiasm in Chicago, the numbers are very clear, and they don't look good for Democrats. The party's performance in rural America has been sinking steadily for more than a decade. But you can find places on the map where Democrats have won statewide elections in red states, and those campaigns often have the same guy working behind the scenes.
ERIC HYERS: Eric Hyers, Democratic political strategist.
SHAPIRO: I mean, you have been called a Democrat in a red state whisperer. Would you embrace that title?
HYERS: I do. I do.
SHAPIRO: Before the convention began, I asked Hyers what the secret is to someone like Andy Beshear winning in Kentucky or Roy Cooper in North Carolina, both Democratic governors in red states. He said there's a good example in eastern Kentucky.
HYERS: JD Vance talks about a county that he says was his ancestral home, and that county was won by Donald Trump, I want to say, by 53- or 55%. Andy Beshear also won that county by 22%. So that is a swing of, like, 75 points. But, yes, movement is possible.
SHAPIRO: He told me to win a county like that, the messenger matters as much as the message.
HYERS: So we had sheriffs. We had Republican business owners, and we kept that going for many, many, many weeks.
SHAPIRO: Most of the high-profile Democratic politicians who've carried red states are white men. Chris Jones of Arkansas ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor against Sarah Huckabee Sanders. He's Black. And he said, of course it's not a coincidence that the Democratic winners in red states have generally been white men, but the past doesn't have to predict the future.
JONES: If you look at most sectors in the U.S. over the last 200 years, it's been white men, right? So it's not unique to the Democratic Party. It's across the board. I do think if you look at the bench on the Democratic ticket, you'll see folks in places like Georgia. So Georgia's rural. Stacey Abrams did a phenomenal job. Raphael Warnock did a phenomenal job. And he's our current senator.
SHAPIRO: The trend lines for Democrats in red areas aren't going to flip overnight, but the path to victory might not require Harris to get a majority in areas that Trump won four years ago. It might be enough just to lose in those counties by a little bit less. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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