Has rural America turned a permanent shade of red? Or have Democrats abandoned rural voters, competing only in cities?

Chloe Maxmin has been pioneering a new style of progressive politics in conservative, rural Maine — and winning, earning her national attention. Maxmin is a climate activist who graduated from Harvard in 2015, where she and classmate Canyon Woodward co-founded Divest Harvard, a climate action group. 

In 2018, Maxmin returned to her rural Maine county and twice flipped a Republican seat — first for state representative and then defeating the highest-ranking Republican in Maine. She was the youngest female state senator in Maine’s history. Woodward was the campaign manager for Maxmin’s successful 2018 and 2020 campaigns.

Maxmin and Woodward have teamed up to share their story and give some tough-love advice to Democrats about why they’ve lost rural voters and how they can win them back. Their new book is “Dirt Road Revival: How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends on It.”

“We need a Democratic Party that can inspire and support such campaigns in which political power is rooted in community, based in relationships, and built to last,” Maxmin and Woodward wrote. “There is power in the untold stories of rural people, in their frustration and search for a better life, in the wisdom that dwells at the crossroads of independence and interdependence."