Northfield (United States) (AFP) - President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he aims at "restoring pride" in rural America, pitching his reelection bid to a constituency which voted overwhelmingly for his rival Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
"My plan is about investing in rural America. It's about something else as well. It's about restoring pride... to rural communities that have been left behind for far too long," he said during a visit to a farm in Minnesota.
The Midwestern state also happens to be home to Dean Phillips, a congressman little known on the national stage who has just thrown his hat into the ring as a challenger to Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Barring a huge surprise, Biden is nearly guaranteed to be his party's presidential candidate in November 2024.
For this visit Biden has picked a family farm that grows corn and soy and raises hogs.
The White House is pledging more than $5 billion in investment in rural America, with the funds coming from programs instituted under Biden's vast infrastructure overhaul and energy transition plans.
For example, $1.7 billion will go toward developing so-called smart farms that are more resistant to global warming, while another $1.1 billion will be earmarked for infrastructure projects.
Another $274 million will be set aside for developing high speed internet access in rural areas.
The 80-year-old Democrat, pointing out that over four decades the United States had lost some 400,000 farms, spoke of young people living in the countryside, who say to themselves: "There's nothing for me here. I gotta leave."
"I came to office determined to change that," he declared.
'Something wrong'
Biden is launching a two-week offensive during which several members of his administration will crisscross the country to show how the his economic and social policies "guarantee rural Americans that they don't have to go far from home to find opportunity."
His administration will tout Biden's massive infrastructure program, which the White House says is synonymous with improved internet access, upgraded roads, more reliable energy networks and better access to healthcare.
Biden is also expected to talk about his promised support for innovative agricultural systems as well as efforts to help small farmers trying to compete against huge agrobusiness firms.
In particular the Biden administration wants to stimulate competition in production of beef and poultry, which is currently dominated by just a handful of huge companies.
"There is something wrong when just 7 percent of the American farms get nearly 90 percent... of the farm income" of the entire country, he said, lamenting that "most farmers rely on jobs off the farm to be able to make ends meet."
The rural vote could prove crucial in some contested states next year, but Biden faces a huge challenge in trying to reverse the trend of rural America voting increasingly Republican.
American political polarization between conservatives in rural areas and mainly pro-Democratic cities is nothing new, but accelerated under Trump.
According to Pew Research, Trump has overwhelmingly won the rural electorate in the last two presidential elections: 59 percent of rural voters voted for him in 2016, and 65 percent in 2020.
The challenge for Biden is not so much to take the lead in rural America, a likely insurmountable feat, but rather to narrow Trump's lead -- or at least keep it from growing.
