In the closing weeks of the 2026 US midterm elections, Democratic and independent candidates are betting that old-fashioned retail politics can still breach Republican strongholds in the nation’s rural heartland. Across Nebraska, Iowa and Montana, a new generation of “prairie populists” is campaigning on anti-corporate platforms, taking aim at datacenters, monopoly power and the two-party duopoly. For Dan Osborn, a nonpartisan Senate hopeful in Nebraska, the strategy is literal: he is visiting all 93 counties in the state before election day, shaking hands in towns that national campaigns usually write off.
A Tour of All 93 Counties
When Osborn rolled into Arthur earlier this month, he started walking into businesses along the tiny main drag of a town with roughly 100 residents. For an independent running for the US Senate in a red state, every vote matters — even in solidly Republican areas that most candidates overlook. He has about a dozen counties left on his itinerary.
He first spoke to a handful of locals at the town market, then crossed to the Bunkhouse, a restaurant whose walls are lined with antlers, animal skins and Nebraska licence plates. He grabbed a burger with supporters, then moved from table to table, apologising for the frequency of political ads before introducing himself.
“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I just wanna work for workers,” he said.
Kristy Ferguson, a 72-year-old independent who lives in Arthur, had not been certain she would vote before leaving for the winter in Florida. A friend texted from Florida urging her to back Osborn before she departed. She voted that morning, heard he was in town and went to find him. She knew of three left-leaning residents in Arthur and called them to come meet him too.
“I didn’t really know there was a chance he could win,” Ferguson said. “I hope he can be in the Senate, so that’s a valuable vote.”
Ray, a 75-year-old Democrat from Arthur who met Osborn at the Bunkhouse, said he liked that the candidate was not wealthy, was a Nebraska local and wanted to help people. He remembered when petrol cost 30 cents a gallon; now, he said, prices are “ridiculous”.
“I want somebody that ain’t in there for themselves, you know?” he said.
Mark Vinton, a 46-year-old rancher and chair of the county’s Republican party, said he was looking for whichever candidate would align most closely with Donald Trump. He initially suspected Osborn’s county-by-county tour was a marketing ploy, but credited him for taking questions “respectfully” and seeming like a “reasonable guy”. Vinton would not be voting for Osborn. “I’m going to support whoever supports the president’s policies,” he added.
The Corporate Target: Datacenters, Monopoly and the Farm Bill
The political tradition these candidates are reviving stretches back to the late 19th century, when left-of-centre populists organised small farmers against the railroads. Cory Haala, a history professor at South Dakota State University, said railroads bought up land and charged exorbitant rates to farmers shipping goods across the country. Those farmers, often working with organised labour, pushed to regulate the railroads and resist out-of-state interests.
Some hallmarks of that movement persist today: a state-run bank in North Dakota, a state-run flour mill and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor alliance in Minnesota. Progressive populism peaked again during the 1980s farm crisis, when poor economic conditions triggered mass small-farm failures. Populists and farming-focused Democrats won for decades across the prairie and midwest, from Tom Harkin in Iowa and Byron Dorgan in North Dakota to Tom Daschle in South Dakota and Bob Kerrey in Nebraska. By 2013, USA Today described them as a “fading species”.
This election cycle has added datacenters and artificial intelligence to the populist platform, drawing on anti-corporate and anti-elite sentiment and a rural desire to keep land and lifestyles free from big tech interference. Haala said the conversations around anti-monopoly, antitrust and datacenters are creating new flashpoints for the kind of populist organising that succeeded in the 1930s and 1980s. “It is an oftentimes out-of-state, kind of faceless corporate endeavour,” he said.
Heidi Heitkamp, the last Democrat to win statewide in North Dakota, took her seat in 2012 before losing re-election in
