RuralVote.org is a pro-Democratic Party super PAC established by the creators of RuralOrganizing.org. ^{1 2}

The super PAC has been funded by affiliates of trial lawyers, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). ^{2 3}

Background

RuralVote.org is a pro-Democratic Party super PAC based in Columbus, Ohio. The organization says it is a national network working to “elect Democratic candidates fighting for small towns and rural communities.” ²

RuralVote.org is a super PAC established by the creators of . ¹

The organization says it is focused on growing its national network of civic leaders and volunteers to elect left-wing candidates. ² It further claims to focus on opposing authoritarian threats and on preserving abortion access. ¹

RuralVote.org says it is a community of rural advocates “proud of our deep rural roots and believe the small-town way of life is worth fighting for.” It says it wants to get out the vote for candidates that advocate quality health careRuralOrganizing.org, education, and social services. ⁴

Funding

RuralOrganizing.org gave $30,000 to RuralVote.org for the 2024 election cycle. ³

Political action committees affiliated with trial lawyers have sent at least $100,000 to RuralVote.org since 2022, according to an investigation by the right-of-center Alliance for Consumers updated in 2025. ²

The NEA Advocacy Fund, affiliated with the National Education Association teachers union, contributed $65,000 to RuralVote.org in the 2024 election cycle. ³

The American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education contributed $50,000 to RuralVote.org.  ³

1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East Federal Political Action Fund contributed $25,000 to RuralVote.org.  ³

RuralVote.org gave $87,355.33 to support the election of then-Vice President Kamala Harris (D) as president in 2024. It spent $36,906.57 supporting other Democratic candidates in 2024, and smaller amounts opposing various Republican candidates. ⁵

Political Activity

RuralVote.org and RuralOrganizing.org say they have used “Vocal Locals” in small towns to facilitate about 500,000 conversations between neighbors, friends, and families. ¹

RuralVote.org founder Matt Hildreth said the motto was to “Lose less” in rural areas. To boost Democratic turnout in rural America, Hildreth focused on yard signs. During the 2020 election cycle, the super PAC distributed 42,500 yard signs in rural counties in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa. Hildreth said his group funded a randomized field experiment during Kentucky’s 2019 gubernatorial race, which found that yard signs added two votes per precinct for Democratic candidate Andy Beshear, who defeated Republican incumbent then-Gov. Matt Bevin that year. ⁶

RuralVote.org was heavily critical of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for having no rural strategy for the 2022 midterm election. The group pointed to Democrats’ poor performance in the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, which Republican Glenn Youngkin won over former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). In a memo, RuralVote.org executive director J.D. Scholten wrote that what the three arms consider winnable races are almost entirely urban and suburban districts. Scholten wrote, “Nationwide, rural voters make up about 20% of the vote. Do Democrats spend at least 20% of their funding on their vote? With the rural skew of the Electoral College, the Senate and the Supreme Court, the Democrats need to start investing in rural voter outreach.” In the memo, Scholten called for “year-round on-the-ground organizing to help with party infrastructure and candidate recruitment.” ⁷

In the 2024 election cycle, the organizing wing, RuralOrganizing.org, and the super PAC, RuralVote.org, placed almost 100,000 yard signs in small towns in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Montana. ¹

The super PAC and organizing wing focused on U.S. Senate races and abortion-related ballot initiatives. While acknowledging candidate losses in 2024, the groups pointed to abortion ballot initiative victories in Ohio and Montana in 2023. ¹

In Ohio and Montana, the group says it recruited 2,055 “Vocal Locals” who placed 48,796 signs across 515 communities, covering 39 of 56 counties in Montana and 87 of 88 counties in Ohio. ¹

Despite incumbent Democrats losing in 2024, the organizations note that then-U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) outperformed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris by almost six percentage points in Montana, then-U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) exceeded Harris by 4.2 percentage points in Ohio. ¹

Personnel

Matt Hildreth is the founder of RuralOrganizing.org and RuralVote.org. He took leave in 2024 to be the rural outreach director for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Hildreth is a native of South Dakota. He first got involved in politics in 2007 with then-candidate Barack Obama’s campaign. ⁸

Previously, Hildreth worked as the director of illegal immigration advocacy organization America’s Voice and held a role at left-of-center advocacy organization Sojourners. ⁹ He is also a member of left-of-center Legal Services Corporation’s Rural Justice Task Force. ¹⁰

J.D. Scholten is the executive director of the super PAC RuralVote.org. He is a former Iowa Democratic U.S. Congressional candidate and has served in the Iowa state legislature since 2023. ¹¹

Aftyn Behn is the campaign strategist for RuralVote.org. She is as of 2025 a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. She was previously the campaign director for RuralOrganizing.org. She previously worked at the Indivisible Project as the distributed organizing manager. Before that, she was an organizer for the Tennessee Justice Center in 2017. ¹²

1. “Resilience in Action: Rural Communities Unite to Protect Democracy and Reproductive Rights in 2024.” Rural Vote. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.ruralvote.org/newsupdates/resilience-in-action-rural-communities-unite-to-protect-democracy-and-reproductive-rights-in-2024
2. “Shady Trial Lawyer Pipeline.” Alliance for Consumers. May 2025. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://allianceforconsumers.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AFC_Shady-Trial-Lawyer-Pipeline-Update-2025.pdf
3. “RuralVote.org.” Federal Election Commission. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00754754/?tab=raising
4. “About.” Rural Vote. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.ruralvote.org/about
5. “RuralVote.org.” Federal Election Commission. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00754754/?tab=spending#total-disbursements
6. Kroll, Andy. “Can Joe Biden and the Democrats Win Back Rural Voters in 2020?” Rolling Stone. November 1, 2020. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rural-vote-donald-trump-joe-biden-2020-election-1084240/
7. Wren, Adam. “Rural Democrats are freaking out about their party’s apathy toward ‘flyover-state’ voters ahead of the 2022 midterms. Here’s the memo showing what they want to do about it.” Business Insider. November 23, 2021. Access July 5, 2025. https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-rural-voter-strategy-criticism-2022-midterms-2021-11
8. Adams, Mason. “Where Now Rural Progressives? The Harris Campaign’s Rural Outreach Director Has Answers.” Barn Raiser. January 30, 2024. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://barnraisingmedia.com/harris-campaign-rural-outreach-director-matt-hildreth/
9. “Matt Hildreth.” RuralOrganizing.org. Accessed October 15, 2022. https://ruralorganizing.org/matt-hildreth.
10. “Rural Justice Task Force.” Legal Services Corporation. Accessed October 15, 2022. https://www.lsc.gov/initiatives/lsc-task-forces/rural-justice-task-force.
11. Montellaro, Zach and Schneider, Elena. “Rural Democrats stare into the abyss after Virginia.” Politico. November 6, 2021. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/06/rural-dems-trouble-519782
12. Aftyn Behn. Accessed July 4, 2025. https://www.aftynbehn.com/careloudlycampaignschool