Long before Jamie Ager entered politics, he was making a name for himself in a very different place: the meat counter of a grocery store in Boone, North Carolina.

It was the early 2000s, and Ager owned and operated Hickory Nut Gap, a regenerative farm near Asheville. Over the next 20 years, he helped build a regional food system that delivered healthier food to thousands of people, improved land stewardship and made farming a bit more profitable.

We’ve long believed that American politics would be a whole lot better if people like him – working folks who care for the land and their communities so well – were representing us.

And now he is. On Tuesday night, Ager won the House race for North Carolina’s 11th congressional district, resoundingly flipping a Republican seat that Donald Trump won handily in 2024.

He wasn’t alone. Democrats tore into Republicans’ rural vote margins, wiping out almost half of Trump’s colossal 40-point advantage in 2024. Of the 21 most rural-populated states that held elections for US Senate, Democrats won in 10 of them, including states like Kansas, Mississippi and Iowa, all long surrendered to the Republican juggernaut.

Rural voters still favor Republicans – but by a whole lot less. They swung 15 points toward Democratic US Senate candidates, compared to their 2024 presidential vote choice. (Nationwide, Republican turnout was down, so we don’t yet know what percentage of the swing was toward Democrats versus the........

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