Collin Peterson on why rural voters don't vote Democratic anymore

U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota is one of the last members of a dying breed: the rural conservative Democrat. He has represented Minnesota’s Seventh Congressional District for a quarter-century, since 1991. The district encompasses most of the western half of the state. It’s farm country, a broad swath of fields and open prairie running from the South Dakota border all the way up to Canada.

The people Peterson represents are overwhelmingly white and moderately conservative. According to the Cook Political Report, Peterson was one of nine Democrats sent to Congress from a district that voted for Romney in 2012.

Most counties in Peterson’s district swung hard toward Trump this year, by margins of 20, 30, 40 percentage points or more. But Peterson himself still earned 52.5 percent of the vote, enough to head to Congress for a 14th term.

http://www.startribune.com/collin-peterson-on-why-rural-voters-don-t-vote-democratic-anymore/403014126/