Have Democrats Given Up on Rural Illinois?
Former Congresswoman Cheri Bustos says Democrats need to do a better job of being present and active in rural communities across Illinois.
NOTE: This story was originally posted for subscribers only. To receive subscriber-only newsletters and content, click here.
Sipping coffee in a diner just outside of the Quad Cities Monday, former Congresswoman Cheri Bustos ponders the future for downstate Democrats.
While Democrats won two downstate congressional districts, and a handful of legislative seats in 2022 thanks, in no small part, to gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps drawn to elect more Democrats, the divide between urban centers and rural outposts were possibly more stark than ever.
In tiny Wayne County in southern Illinois, GOP nominee for Governor Darren Bailey defeated Democrat JB Pritzker by an 89%-9% margin. In fact, Bailey cleared 80% in some 18 downstate counties last fall, but the beating he took in Chicago, suburban Cook County, and suburban counties more than made up for Pritzker’s downstate shortcomings.
Bustos was elected to the 17th congressional district in 2012, defeating an incumbent Republican in a district won by then-President Barack Obama. She proceeded to win re-election four more times, but her district trended rightward. Donald Trump won it in 2016 and 2020 and Bustos narrowly won re-election in 2020.
She did not seek re-election last year and now manages the midwestern operations for D.C. based Mercury Public Affairs Group.
Bustos is a centrist at a time when politics, especially the D.C. echo chamber, has dragged discourse to the extremes.
She says if Democrats want to relate in rural Illinois, they need to show their interest in rural Illinois.
“I think we have to go to the old fashioned playbook of going everywhere and, if its a town of 48 people or if its a town of 800 people or 8,000 people, we have to show up in these towns,” she said. “It almost seems cliché, but it’s not. If you actually do show up and have conversations with people, and, more importantly, you listen to people, it does make a difference.”
Bustos said the 2016 election cycle is when she felt the polarization of politics break through in her daily life.
“I could feel the district changing in the ten years that I was in office. I could feel it and it continued to get worse,” she said. “Frankly, Democrats are going to have to work really really hard to win back a lot of the people that were once good voters for Democratic candidates.”
Bustos said it got harder for her as she had the leftward turn of national Democrats hung around her neck in district.
“Representing a Trump district as a Democrat, I got lumped in with the farthest left that were part of the national party,” she said. “That was not helpful.”
Bustos spent all ten years in Congress as a member of the House Agriculture Committee, where she took votes she thought were in lock-step with farmers in the district.
“When I would drive around and see my opponent’s signs in the corners of the corn and bean fields, I’m thinking it can be nothing more than I have a ‘D’ by my name,” she said. “Certainly, I had a great voting record for our family farmers. I’m not saying everybody’s gotta like me, but my voting record was very good for farmers. And yet, they were supportive of my opponent [in 2020].”
Bustos argued with a perception among many downstaters that Democrats like Pritzker have forgotten or don’t care about them.
“I think Governor Pritzker has made conscious decisions to bring people into his administration who are good surrogates for him. It’s 102 counties, a huge state,” she said. “He’s gotta make sure he has people who can make sure his administration is doing right by downstate. And I think he’s done a ton.”
Bustos pointed to Department of Agriculture Director Jerry Costello and Deputy Governor Andy Manar as top advocates for downstate in his administration.
Bustos also defended national Democrats, especially the Biden administration, for investing tens of billions of dollars into rural America.
But, Bustos said, Democrats need to spend more time focusing on, and copying, the success of rural Democrats around the country.
“The national Democratic party should listen to us. It kills me when candidates continue to hire people or political pundits or the media listens to those who lose. I want to listen to those who win,” Bustos said. “Look at Democrats who won in Trump districts or Trump states. We do things differently.”
She says it also requires Democrats to recruit and nominate moderate candidates who accurately reflect their constituents.
“You’ve gotta fit a district. It’s not race, it’s not gender, it’s not occupation, it is more if your voting record is going to be representative of that district,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t show leadership and maybe you take some votes that are out of sync with the district, but that fit is really important.”
Bustos, who relocated from her longtime home in the Quad Cities to Galena this year, Cited a number of issues for decision to leave Congress, including the riots in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But she said she remains interested and committed to seeing her party succeed downstate.
She cited downstate Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (D-Springfield) as a Democrat committed to working for the rural areas of her district.
She says Democrats don’t have to write off rural areas, but will have to underwrite the time and attention necessary in winning those voters.
“It is a long term investment,” she said. “I think what the Democratic Party is going to have to do is get off of the interstates and onto the gravel roads. It’s as simple as that.”