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KILMARNOCK, Va. - If Democrats want to rebound from their 2024 election catastrophe in 2026, they're going need to win over voters like Valerie Rancourt.
Rancourt, and her husband, Mike, voted for President Barack Obama twice before breaking with the party in 2016, 2020 and 2024 when they voted for President Donald Trump. The retirees from New Hampshire, who moved to a rural town in Virginia's Northern Neck − sandwiched between the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay − also voted Republican in the Virginia gubernatorial election on Nov. 4.
As they walked along Kilmarnock's Main Street on a sunny Monday afternoon, a day before the election, they made it clear that it would take a lot for Democrats to win them back, including jettisoning "woke" policies and stemming illegal immigration. Neither of them see that happening anytime soon.
“The Democrats are getting a lot of things wrong," said Valerie Rancourt, 67. "They’ve become, in my opinion, very hateful and no longer vote for what's best for this country. They are loosey-goosey on illegal immigration."
Democrats' hopes of recapturing Congress in next year's midterm elections and the White House in 2028 depend in part on winning back disaffected Democrats and voters who once backed Obama but flipped to Trump in the 2016 and 2024 elections.
Most of Kilmarnock, a town of about 1,400 people, lies in Lancaster County, which is reliably Republican. However, the county has been turning bluer as people from Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia − and the whole Northeast − move there for retirement.
The Rancourts moved to nearby Reedville to get away from New Hampshire's cold winters and to be close to the water. Before their retirement, Valerie owned a shop in New Hampshire and Mike, 71, worked as a professional engineer.
The average household income in Kilmarnock is a little over $31,000 with about 30% of the population living below the poverty line, according to Census data from 2023.
Valerie Rancourt said Trump struck a chord with her when he spoke about illegal immigration being the biggest issue facing the country in 2016. He stood out among the 17 people who were vying for the Republican nomination.
"I believe he loves this country. I think people vote right now for what they want, not what is right for the country," she said. "And I think that what's changed about the Democratic Party."
Her husband Mike said while “caring is good,” the government can't afford to offer medical care to people in the country illegally.
It's a frequent GOP line of attack, but Democrats in Congress do not support providing healthcare to immigrants who are not in the country legally. Last year, former President Joe Biden's administration allowed children brought to the country illegally to access to Obamacare health insurance. Trump reversed that plan earlier this year.
Winning voters back, such as the Rancourts, is going be an uphill battle.
"To be quite honest with you, I'm not exactly sure how I ended up as a Republican. The Democrats no longer seem to be loving this country," Valerie Rancourt said. "They seem to love to hate it almost."
Alluding to identity politics and hot-button issues such as Trump's opposition to transgender athletes playing in women's sports, she said: "I think we need to re-look at things like the word normal. We never use that anymore. It's as if there's nothing that is abnormal. I don't see going back (to the Democratic Party) now."
USA TODAY spoke to more than a dozen people in Kilmarnock and Irvington, a nearby town of about 500 people, to get their take on the Democratic brand. Their prescription for Democrats included a plea to stop focusing on identity politics, to infuse the party with young blood and to talk about affordability issues affecting Americans.
Democrats swept the first elections since Trump took office in January, including electing Reps. Abigail Spanberger, 46, and Mikie Sherrill, 53, to governorships of Virginia and New Jersey respectively. In New York City, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, 34, emerged as the new darling of the left.
All three candidates ran with a focus on affordability and largely avoided social issues.
Voters here haven't changed their impression of the party though, and polls show that Democrats struggle with that perception nationwide.
In a recent four-day Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, 68% of respondents agreed that Democrats were “out of touch,” compared to 61% when it came to the GOP.
A Pew Research Center survey in September found that 67% of Democrats say their own party makes them feel frustrated – far higher than the roughly half who said this in 2021 and 2019.
No politics on election night
Things were quiet on election night in Kilmarnock.
The two bars in town, Nacho Average Brewpub and That Damn Mary Brewery, both on West Church Street were closed by 8 p.m.
There were no raucous watch parties.
“New Year's Eve is the same way,” said Shawn Donahue, owner of Nacho Average Brewpub, who is also the town mayor. “It's driving distance, dark at night and old people.”
Like many people from Kilmarnock and the surrounding towns, Donahue himself is a Washington DC-area transplant. When he arrived 30 years ago, the county had a 70-30 split in Republicans’ favor.
“Now it’s closer 50-50,” he says, at least when it comes to the town of Kilmarnock.
In nearby Irvington, only a solitary dining establishment, The Office Bistro, was open.
When a reporter asked if the channel on the TV above the bar could be switched to election news, she was told that "news" was off limits. It would stay on sports as the election results were called.
On Nov. 4, Lancaster County favored Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, who got 55% of the vote. Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger, who carried the state with 57% of the votes, raked in only 45% in Lancaster County.
Some Republican voters in Lancaster County saw the Democrats' good night as a referendum on Trump amid the ongoing government shutdown.
“It was a shocker for everybody. I didn't expect it to be a blowout for the Democratic Party all across the board nationwide,” Donahue said. “I think it really was a mandate against Trump more than anything.”
Trump also suffers from low approval ratings. The latest Economist/YouGov poll gave Trump a 39% approval rating.
But for Democrats to win control of the House of Representatives in 2026 might require improving their own image. And voters here say there’s work to be done. Many still view them as out of touch, too socially liberal and lacking an understanding of how bread-and-butter economic issues affect ordinary Americans.
“The Democratic Party has self-destructed. Its lack of focus on things that matter to working Americans, pretty much killed it,” said Linda Lowell, 77, as she sat at an election volunteer desk outside the Irvington Baptist Church on Election Day. The town is about four miles from Kilmarnock.
After the election, Lowell said she was encouraged by the results but credited it to a “broad nonpartisan movement to protect our democracy.” She was referring to Trump's aggressive expansion of executive power such as imposing sweeping tariffs, prosecutions of his political opponents and stripping power from independent regulatory agencies.
“What’s coming up now is crossing party lines,” said Lowell, who is currently not registered with a party but leans Democratic.
“It's independents, it’s Republicans, like the Lincoln (Project) people," she added, referring to the anti-Trump advocacy group founded by former Republican officials and strategists. "People who remember what the Constitution says.”
Is it Trump's policies or just his attitude?
The most imposing building on Main Street is a gun shop called Chandler’s Firearms Estates, on the corner of East Church Street. The two-story white brick building with a flat roofline and prominent letterings, including "AMMO" written vertically on the side, recalls a saloon in the Old West. The store sells new, used and antique firearms, decoy ducks for waterfowl hunting, apparel and accessories. Down the street are a gift store, a clothing boutique, an appliance store and a couple of restaurants.
On East Church Street sits the Kilmarnock Inn, which was converted from a home dating back to 1884. The 16-room inn, which has seven cottages - all named after the seven presidents born in Virginia - is also owned by Donahue.
The morning after the election, Donahue said he'd had a meeting with six business owners. None thought it was Trump’s policies that were the reason for the Republican losses. He said they'd all agreed it was the way the president had been “conducting himself.”
“It's not the tariffs and all that other stuff,” said Donohue. “It's that he's still talking about Biden nine months after the election every time he talks.”
Can Democrats get their mojo back?
A recent report by American Bridge , a liberal group, found that “working-class voters perceive Democrats to be woke, weak, and out-of-touch, too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact everyone.”
Lorraine Macaulay and her husband, Jeff, moved to Colonial Beach, a nearby river town, from Poughkeepsie, New York, 90 minutes north of New York City, a few years ago.
The day before the election, the retired Democratic couple was walking on Main Street in Kilmarnock.
Back in New York, Lorraine Macaulay, 71, worked in advertising retail and husband, Jeff, 73, was a social worker.
Asked how they were feeling about the Democratic Party, Lorraine said it was hard to tell what the party's priorities were.
“I get from Facebook and online appeals for money, but nothing that says what they're doing or what they plan to do,” said Lorraine. “I think they need to be branding themselves better other than just opposite of what Trump does.”
Her husband said that even though government is supposed to be built on compromise, he was happy the Democrats “didn’t fold” on budget negotiations.
“If the Republicans just have total control, they will not be willing to talk about anything else,” he said.
In terms of what the Democrats need to do to bolster their brand, he said: “They need to encourage or allow more participation from younger people.”
Lowell said Democrats’ emphasis and focus on gender, identity and pronouns had been outsize in terms of the party's priorities.
“The pronouns and all that. It just didn't have to be reified into everybody's policy position,” she said. “It needs to be addressed, but it's not the big thing.”
Angelina Manyak, 37, who runs an oyster farm with her husband on the Chesapeake Bay, says she hasn’t voted for any major party candidates in years. She usually votes for third party candidates.
“I think that across the board, all parties are out of touch in a lot of ways. I think both parties are missing the mark,” she said. “They're not meeting people where they're at.”
For instance, on education, other than talking in generalities about pro-public or charter schools, politicians don’t have deeper discussions, she said.
“They don’t get down to the nitty gritty of what our children need in the education system,” Manyak said. “I think there's a lot of things lacking, whether it's outdoor time or the type of food that's being supplied to our students.”
As a farmer, she also has seen the plight of other farmers who rely on immigrant laborers who are undocumented. Their workers live in fear of ICE raids, she said.
“Their children are terrified that they're going to come home to an empty home without their parents,” she said. “And that is, in my opinion, unacceptable in our American society.”
That issue could tilt the midterm election in Democrats’ favor in 2026, she said.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Has Trump lost his mojo? Rural voters sound off on Democratic wins
Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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