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    Tim Walz and the Pull of Rural America

    More from our inbox:A Rattled Donald TrumpCancer Screenings Save Lives and Are Worth the CostFrom Rust to Rescue HeroAn Olympic Transit Reality Check Abbie Parr/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Democrats Have Needed Someone Like Walz for Decades,” by Sarah Smarsh (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 9):Thank you for publishing Ms. Smarsh’s article, which so eloquently and succinctly illustrates how politicians, pundits and journalists have marginalized rural America by lumping us into a single category: red state.I am from a long line of early Indiana settlers: hard-working people who began as farmers and maintained honest lives while supporting democratic ideals and the Democratic Party. Reading this piece is a breath of fresh air, and I appreciate that Ms. Smarsh shares our appreciation for the honesty and direct communication of a fine person like Tim Walz. Thank you, Minnesota.Diana WannLebanon, Ind.To the Editor:Having grown up in a small town in Minnesota, I agree with Sarah Smarsh that Gov. Tim Walz brings back some essential elements into our politics.I am only a few generations removed from Norwegian immigrants who came to America and helped settle an area near the South Dakota border in the last decades of the 19th century.The effort to tame and harvest the prairie created a very pragmatic “let’s get it done and move on to other things” philosophy. Many of the older farmers I remember would describe today’s political rhetoric as “bells and whistles, but no engine.”Mr. Walz is not only a refreshing relief from much of the mindless political rhetoric we have to listen to today. He may very well also be putting the engine back on our national economy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    If Kamala Harris Is a D.E.I. Candidate, So Is JD Vance

    Ever since speculation began that Vice President Kamala Harris might replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, there has been a steady, ugly chorus on the right. The New York Post published a column that declared that Harris would be a “D.E.I. president,” and quickly the phrase ricocheted across the conservative media ecosystem.The invocation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs meant to bring people from underrepresented backgrounds into institutions of power and influence clearly implied that a Black woman got power because of racial preferences. Black achievement, in this narrative, is always unearned and conferred without regard to merit.Listening to JD Vance’s speech at the Republican convention on Wednesday night, as he laid out his remarkable biography — a young man with roots in an economically devastated backwater who scaled the heights of the American elite — I couldn’t help thinking to myself: If Harris is a D.E.I. candidate, so is Vance. It just depends on what kind of diversity you mean. It depends, indeed, on how you understand the role of identity in shaping the opportunities that define anyone’s life.All politics is, at some level, identity politics — the business of turning identity into power, be it the identity of a candidate or demographic group or political party or region of the country. For modern presidential and vice-presidential candidates, one of their most valuable assets is their life story. Some elements of that story are bequeathed at birth, but what makes politicians successful is their talent at narrating that story in a manner that allows voters to see some version of themselves and their own aspirations in the candidate. This kind of storytelling, embedded in American archetypes and ideals, has shaped our politics.Vance’s entire business and political career has flowed from his life story, which is embedded in identities he did not choose: Born a “hillbilly,” of Scotch-Irish descent, he grew up in poverty, son of a single mother who was addicted to drugs. Overcoming this adversity, these disadvantages, lies at the core of his personal narrative. His ascent would hardly be so remarkable if he started from a life of middle-class comfort. But no one is portraying Vance’s elevation to the Republican ticket as the outcome of some kind of illegitimate identity politics, nor is Vance perceived as having benefited from a political form of affirmative action.And yet he almost certainly did. Race is not the only kind of diversity that gets noticed and embraced. Elite institutions love up-by-your-bootstraps Americans, and that archetype is all over Vance’s life story. A promising white candidate from a county that sends few students to an elite college like Yale would get a strong look, even if that person’s grades and test scores were less impressive than other applicants’. (To be clear, I have no idea what kind of grades or scores Vance had.) Regardless of race, applicants from working-class backgrounds, especially if they were the first in their family to attend college, are deemed to add class diversity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Sunday Read: ‘A Republican Election Clerk vs. Trump Die-Hards in a World of Lies’

    Tally Abecassis and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeCindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”After the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s denials and accusations of voter fraud spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. Elgan knew most of the 620 voters in the town. Still, they accused her of being paid off and skimming votes away from Trump. And even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.There are a lot of ways to listen to “The Daily.” Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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    The Climate Challenges That India’s Next Government Will Face

    India, the world’s most populous country, is also among the most vulnerable to climate hazards. That’s not only because of the heat and floods that global warming has exacerbated, but also because so many of the country’s 1.4 billion people are vulnerable to begin with. Most people are poor, by global standards, and they have no safety net.Early election results Tuesday signaled that the party led by Narendra Modi, the two-term Hindu nationalist Indian prime minister, is poised to win the largest number of seats in the Indian Parliament but may have to join with smaller parties to form a coalition government.That government will face major challenges brought on by climate change.Heat is now an election issue, literally.The six-week process of voting took place amid a scorching heat wave in several parts of the country. In the northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, at least 33 people, including poll workers, died of complications from the heat last week, according to government authorities cited by Reuters.Rohit Magotra, deputy director of Integrated Research and Action for Development, called on national election officials to reschedule elections in the future to avoid such calamities. He pointed out that workers from every political party suffer in the heat, and so do voters, who often have to line up under the sun.“I definitely see the momentum building up, and elections are unlikely to be scheduled in peak summer in future,” said Mr. Magotra, whose organization has advocated heat solutions in Indian cities.The Election Commission this year did set up a task force to monitor weather conditions, but only after voting got underway amid abnormally high temperatures. It also sent election workers a list of heat precautions prepared by the National Disaster Management Agency. However, according to a report published in Scroll, an Indian news site, political-party campaigners were not told to do anything differently because of the heat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Fix the Damn Roads’: How Democrats in Purple and Red States Win

    When Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania got an emergency call about I-95 last June, his first thought turned to semantics. “When you say ‘collapse,’ do you really mean collapse?” he recalled wondering. Highways don’t typically do that, but then tractor-trailers don’t typically flip over and catch fire, which had happened on an elevated section of the road in Philadelphia.Shapiro’s second, third and fourth thoughts were that he and other government officials needed to do the fastest repair imaginable.“My job was: Every time someone said, ‘Give me a few days, and I’ll get back to you,’ to say, ‘OK, you’ve got 30 minutes,’” he told me recently. He knew how disruptive and costly the road’s closure would be and how frustrated Pennsylvanians would get.But he knew something else, too: that if you’re trying to impress a broad range of voters, including those who aren’t predisposed to like you, you’re best served not by joining the culture wars or indulging in political gamesmanship but by addressing tangible, measurable problems.In less than two weeks, the road reopened.Today, Shapiro enjoys approval ratings markedly higher than other Pennsylvania Democrats’ and President Biden’s. He belongs to an intriguing breed of enterprising Democratic governors who’ve had success where it’s by no means guaranteed, assembled a diverse coalition of supporters and are models of a winning approach for Democrats everywhere. Just look at the fact that when Shapiro was elected in 2022, it was with a much higher percentage of votes than Biden received from Pennsylvanians two years earlier. Shapiro won with support among rural voters that significantly exceeded other Democrats’ and with the backing of 14 percent of Donald Trump’s voters, according to a CNN exit poll that November.Biden’s fate this November, Democratic control of Congress and the party’s future beyond 2024 could turn, in part, on heeding Shapiro’s and like-minded Democratic leaders’ lessons about reclaiming the sorts of voters the party has lost.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Farmers Clash With Police and Macron at Paris Agricultural Fair

    At the annual show where the French countryside comes to the capital, President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to calm a monthlong confrontation were met with anger.France’s farmers vented their fury at President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday as he arrived at the annual agricultural show in Paris, a giant fair long seen as a test of presidents’ relationship with the countryside.A large crowd that had camped outside the night before broke in and scuffled with police officers in riot gear while Mr. Macron entered through a side door to meet with unions demanding an end to hardships in the industry.During an hourlong closed-door meeting before the fair opened, with top cabinet members at Mr. Macron’s side, farmers sang the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” at the top of their lungs, blew whistles, raised fists and shouted for the president to resign, as skittish prize cows and pigs brought to the capital from farms around the country looked on nervously from their display pens.The rowdy confrontation was the latest in a monthlong showdown that has seen farmers blockade roads around France and in Paris — a movement that has spread to other countries, including Greece, Poland, Belgium and Germany.At issue are what farmers say are sharply rising costs, unfair competition from imports allowed into Europe from other countries able to produce food more cheaply, and especially European Union regulations intended to contain or reverse climate change.Agriculture accounts for about 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the European Union says drastic change is required. Farmers say European targets are imposing suffocating administrative and financial burdens.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Biden Could Lose Georgia Next Year

    Far from the hustle of modern Atlanta and its rapidly growing suburbs is an older Georgia, a rural land of cotton fields and vacant storefronts, of low-wage jobs and shuttered swimming pools, of underfunded Black colleges and American promises ever deferred.In 2020, strong turnout among Black voters in these isolated regions of the state was key to the coalition that turned Georgia blue and ousted Donald Trump from office. Though Atlanta and its suburbs have drawn much of the national attention, Black Democrats in rural Georgia were just as critical: Voting in large numbers in 2020, they reduced the margin of victory in Republican strongholds.Three years later, ahead of a presidential election that could determine whether the United States slides toward autocracy, there are signs this coalition is on the brink of collapse. Many Black voters say President Biden and the Democratic Party have so far failed to deliver the changes they need to improve their lives, from higher-paid jobs to student debt relief and voting protections. They want Mr. Trump out of the White House for good. But indifference and even disdain are growing toward a Democratic Party that relies assiduously on Black Americans’ support yet rarely seems in a hurry to deliver results for them in return.“The Black Hills,” a print by Jason Hunt, hangs at Major’s Barber & Beauty in Fort Valley, Ga.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York TimesA shuttered business in downtown Fort Valley.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York Times“What does he know about my life?” Kyla Johnson, 19, told me of Mr. Biden outside the Dollar General grocery store in Fort Valley, a tiny town in central Georgia home to Fort Valley State University. Ms. Johnson said she had no plans to vote next year.To better understand this discontent, I set out to talk to Black voters across rural Georgia. What I found were many people who are largely living in poverty and say they feel forgotten by Mr. Biden and national Democrats, though almost all did vote for Mr. Biden in 2020. They say they won’t vote for Republicans, whom they see as embodying the spirit of the Old South. But so far, many voters told me, they have seen and heard nothing to suggest that the Democratic Party understands their problems, is committed to improving their lives or even cares about them at all.In dozens of interviews across rural Georgia, younger Black Americans in the region said they are struggling to put food on the table amid soaring prices. They are grappling with suddenly surging housing costs in areas that had long been affordable. Many are carrying tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, debts they have no idea how they can repay working the jobs available in the region, which are extremely limited and low paying. The bounty from a booming Wall Street is nowhere to be found.In Peach County, home to Fort Valley, nearly one in three Black Americans is living below the federal poverty line, according to U.S. census data, compared to 16 percent of white residents in the county and 12.5 percent of Americans nationally. In Lowndes County, which includes Valdosta, about one in three Black Americans is living below the poverty line, compared to just 12.5 percent of white residents.Ms. Johnson’s friend Zayln Young, 18, said she would consider voting, but had so far heard nothing from Mr. Biden about the issues she cared about the most. “For instance, I can’t get food stamps because I’m on my meal plan. Why?” Ms. Young asked, adding that her school meal plan at Fort Valley State University is hard for her to afford and doesn’t provide enough food. (Under federal rules, students who receive the majority of their meals from a school meal plan are ineligible for food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.)Inside the grocery store moments later, Kem Harris, a social worker, told me she had come to buy items to make gift baskets for Fort Valley State University students who were in need. “Some of them don’t have family nearby and they can’t afford basics, like food,” said Ms. Harris, 56. “Today is toiletries, like toothpaste.”In national polls, Black voters appear to be moving away from Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party while expressing growing support for Mr. Trump. In one October poll, just 71 percent of Black voters in battleground states said they would vote for Mr. Biden, compared to the 87 percent that voted for him nationwide in 2020. Nearly a third of Black men said they support Mr. Trump, while 17 percent of Black women do. In another poll, one in five Black voters said they wanted someone other than Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden.What’s going on? Trumpism has proved to be a powerful force in American politics, so it should come as little surprise that some Black Americans — especially Black men — might also be drawn to its authoritarianism, faux populism and toxic masculinity, as so many White Americans have been, particularly as the economy has grown increasingly unequal.Given Mr. Trump’s open embrace of white supremacy, however, that appeal is severely limited. What’s more likely is not a widespread shift of Black voters toward Mr. Trump but a vote of no confidence in Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party. Black Americans know they make up the backbone of the party. They believe — correctly — that it has long taken them for granted. And now they seem to be reaching a breaking point.Melinee Calhoun.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York Times“Overall, I hear this sense of apathy,” said Melinee Calhoun, the state organizing manager for Black Voters Matter, a nonpartisan voting rights group with a large presence in rural Georgia. “It’s: We did what we were asked to do, and nothing has changed.” In many communities, organizers like Dr. Calhoun are the only ones building a relationship with Black voters.Biden campaign officials say the president and Democrats have enacted policies, like the infrastructure bill and $2.2 billion in relief aimed at helping Black farmers, that directly benefit these communities. Part of the challenge, they say, is explaining that they could do more were it not for Republican opposition in Congress.“We want to point out the fact that the Republicans have stood in the way,” Quentin Fulks, Mr. Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, told me in a phone interview. But, he said, “we have to do a better job of taking credit for the work we’ve been doing.”In rural Georgia, this disconnect is vast. Organizers, voters and others here say there has been little investment from national Democrats in the region. Mr. Fulks said that it’s early, and that the campaign was still hiring and planned to spend significant resources in the state. Nevertheless, as Mr. Biden campaigns for a second term, likely against a would-be autocrat, he is speaking about democracy in sweeping terms and lauding the strength of an economy whose fruits are far removed from the daily realities of Black Americans in rural Georgia.Whipping up fears over Mr. Trump and taking a victory lap on standard Democratic policies may not be enough to win back these voters. Instead, Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party will have to get serious about taking bolder measures to help a group of people who, descended from Americans once enslaved in the very same region, remain largely without access to financial capital, under constant threat of political disenfranchisement and, too often, in poverty.When the gentlemen at Major’s Barber & Beauty Shop in downtown Fort Valley learned a journalist from The New York Times was in town, one of them stepped out onto the mostly empty street and beckoned me in. Inside, one of the customers, a regular, welcomed me to what he described as “our country club.”“If it’s Trump, I’ll vote twice,” Major McKenzie, 72, joked. But across the room one barber, Shaun William, 38, carefully affixed a Louis Vuitton-themed cape around a client’s neck and shook his head. Mr. William was worried. Many of his clients, he said, couldn’t stand Mr. Trump. But in recent years under Mr. Biden, they had only seen their lives become harder with rising inflation.Major’s Barber & Beauty Shop in Fort Valley.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York Times“Bad as things were, people say they felt money was circulating with Trump in office, those stimulus checks,” he said. “Now there is no money circulating. Prices are up. The cost of food is up.”Throughout the region, opportunities for jobs are extremely limited. Many voters told me they are forced to make a choice: working menial jobs for local businesses owned by a handful of White Republican families, fast food or Wal-Mart. Given the grinding poverty around them, some voters here also said the recent headlines about the United States sending billions to Israel to bomb Gaza are hard to swallow.“I think he should stay out of other people’s business and focus more on problems here at home,” said Kameron White, a 33-year-old forklift operator. “We need help here. We need better education. More jobs. There’s drugs, there’s gang violence. There’s very few grocery stores. I want to see more change at home.”The state of Georgia stands to receive more than $9 billion under the infrastructure plan championed by Mr. Biden, money for roads, bridges, airports, public transit and cleaner water. But Black voters in Georgia, which has two Democratic senators but a Republican governor and legislature, say they have yet to see that money flow into their own communities. In Valdosta, not far from the Florida border, several residents told me they were angry the city was spending $1.8 million to build pickleball courts even as it keeps threadbare hours for a public swimming pool in a largely Black neighborhood throughout the sweltering South Georgia summer. Though Black residents make up a modest majority in Valdosta, the city’s mayor is a white right-wing talk-show host.The pool at the Mildred Hunter Community Center, in Valdosta, Ga., is open only on Saturdays during the weekends and for limited hours each weekday during the summer.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York TimesVoter enthusiasm is critical in Georgia, where a spirited campaign of suppression and disenfranchisement driven by Republicans and conservative activists both local and national makes exercising the right to vote harder than in many places. In 2005, the state became among the first in the country to enact a measure requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote. In recent years, right-wing activists and Republican Party officials in the state have led an effort to remove voters from the rolls.In a quiet neighborhood of Valdosta near Barack Obama Boulevard, Erica Jordan, 29, greeted me on the porch of her aging white bungalow.She is behind on the rent, as she recently lost her job at Pizza Hut. Because of this, she lost her car, severely limiting her ability to work and be a parent in Valdosta, which has no regular citywide public transit system. Over the past year, the monthly rent on her small house went up by $100, to $750. In late August, floodwaters from Hurricane Idalia entered her home, damaging some of her belongings.Erica Jordan with her daughter.José Ibarra Rizo for The New York TimesMs. Jordan is now working a telecommunications job from home, but she says she earns too much for food stamps and not enough to make ends meet or afford food at the one grocery store within walking distance. At the end of every month, Ms. Jordan says, she asks to babysit or do hair just to eke by.“I’m not complaining, but I pay the bills on my own. I’m a single mother. I need help,” she said.She plans to vote next year, but wonders aloud if it will ever bring the change she needs. “All my life, I been played,” she says. “Every year it gets harder. It makes me wonder why I vote.”It was these voters, some of the poorest in the country, who played a key role in denying Mr. Trump a second term and preserving American democracy. It’s in America’s best interest to make sure they have a reason — and a right — to keep showing up to vote.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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    Biden to Travel to Minnesota to Highlight Rural Investments

    The president’s push to focus attention on the domestic economy comes as his administration has been dealing with events overseas after the terrorist attacks in Israel.The White House on Wednesday will announce more than $5 billion in funding for agriculture, broadband and clean energy needs in sparsely populated parts of the country as President Biden travels to Minnesota to kick off an administration-wide tour of rural communities.The president’s efforts to focus attention on the domestic economy ahead of next year’s campaign come after three weeks in which his administration has been seized by events overseas following the terrorist attacks in Israel and the state’s subsequent military action in Gaza.The trip will take place as Mr. Biden is urging Congress to quickly pass a $105 billion funding package that includes emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, two conflicts he has described as threats to democracy around the globe.But the president and his aides are well aware that his hopes for a second term are likely to be determined closer to home. Rural voters like the ones he will address at a corn, soybean and hog farm south of Minneapolis are increasingly voting Republican. A recent poll showed that most voters had heard little or nothing about a health care and clean energy law that is the cornerstone of Mr. Biden’s economic agenda. And the president even faces a challenge within his own party, from Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who announced his long-shot presidential bid last week.Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, declined on Tuesday to speak about campaign issues, citing the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal officials, but said that Mr. Biden “loves Minnesota.” Administration officials have said Mr. Biden’s trip was planned before Mr. Phillips announced his candidacy.The White House has called the next two weeks of events the “Investing in Rural America Event Series.” It includes more than a dozen trips by Mr. Biden as well as cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials. The White House said in a statement that the tour would highlight federal investments that “are bringing new revenue to farms, increased economic development in rural towns and communities, and more opportunity throughout the country.”Mr. Biden will be joined on Wednesday by Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary. Against the backdrop of a family farm that uses techniques to make crops more resilient to climate change, they will announce $1.7 billion for farmers nationwide to adopt so-called climate-smart agriculture practices.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will join President Biden in Minnesota and later travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOther funding announcements include $1.1 billion in loans and grants to upgrade infrastructure in rural communities; $2 billion in investments as part of a program that helps rural governments work more closely with federal agencies on economic development projects; $274 million to expand high-speed internet infrastructure; and $145 million to expand access to wind, solar and other renewable energy, according to a White House fact sheet.“Young people in rural communities shouldn’t have to leave home to find opportunity,” Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said Tuesday on a call with reporters.She said federal investments were creating “a pathway for the next generation to keep their roots in rural America.”Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, said he expected Mr. Biden to face serious headwinds in rural communities, in large part because of inflation levels.“It is a little challenging, there’s no denying, when prices go up,” Mr. Walz said. “The politics have gotten a little angrier. I think folks are feeling a little behind.”But Mr. Walz also praised Mr. Biden for spending time in rural communities. “Democrats need to show up,” he said.Kenan Fikri, the director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank, said the Biden administration had made sizable investments over the past two and a half years in agriculture, broadband and other rural priorities.“The administration has a lot to show for its economic development efforts in rural communities,” he said, but “whether voters will credit Biden for a strong economic performance is another question.”Later in the week Mr. Vilsack will travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado to speak with agricultural leaders and discuss land conservation. Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, will go to her home state of New Mexico to highlight water infrastructure investments.Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm will be in Arizona to talk about the electricity grid and renewable energy investment in the rural Southwest.The veterans affairs secretary, Denis McDonough, plans to visit Iowa to discuss improving access to medical care for veterans in rural areas. Isabel Guzman, who leads the Small Business Administration, will travel to Georgia to talk about loans for rural small businesses.Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, will go to New Hampshire to promote how community colleges help students from rural areas. Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, will be in North Carolina to talk about health care access in rural areas. More