Democrats are wrong to give up on rural America

Maine’s 1.3m citizens are divided into just two congressional districts. The first is small, since half of Mainers live along the coast around Portland, a fizzy entrepot of lobster-and-scallop mousse and vegan doughnuts. But the second district, which stretches north to Canada, is vast, as big as Ireland. Its forests of pine and birch are so thinly settled that it counts as the second-most-rural district in America. Its people are whiter, older and poorer than Americans in general. The district tells the story of how Democrats lost their appeal to rural and working-class Americans, and with it at times majorities in Congress to match the party’s consistent majorities in the national vote.