Dirt Road Revival

How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends On It

By: Chloe Maxmin, Canyon Woodward

Narrated by: Brianna Fernandez

The Democratic Party left rural America behind.

This urgent rallying cry shows how Democrats can win back and empower overlooked communities that have been pushing politics to the right—and why long-term progressive political power depends on it.

Through 2 successful elections in rural red districts that few thought could be won by a Democrat, twentysomethings Maine state senator Chloe Maxmin (D-District 13) and campaign manager Canyon Woodward saw how the Democratic Party has focused for too long on the interests of elite leaders and big donors, forcing the party to abandon the concerns of rural America—jeopardizing climate justice, racial equity, economic justice, and more. Dirt Road Revival looks at how we got here and lays out a road map for progressive campaigns in rural America to build an inclusive, robust, grassroots politics that fights for equity and justice across our country.

First, Maxmin and Woodward detail how rural America has been left behind. They explore rural healthcare, economic struggle, brain drain, aging communities, whiteness and racism, education access, broadband, Big Agriculture, and more. Drawing on their own experiences, they paint a picture of rural America today and pinpoint the strategic failures of Democrats that have caused the party to lose its rural foothold.

Next, they tell the story of their successful campaigns in the most rural county in the most rural state in the nation. In 2018, Maxmin became the only Democrat to ever win Maine House District 88 and then unseated the highest-ranking Republican in Maine —the Senate Minority Leader—in 2020, making her the youngest woman senator in Maine’s history.

Finally, Maxmin and Woodward distill their experiences into concrete lessons that can be applied to rural districts across the country to build power from the state and local levels on up. They lay out a new long-term vision for Democrats to rebuild trust and win campaigns in rural America by translating progressive values to a rural context, moving beyond the failed strategies of establishment consultants and utilizing grassroots-movement organizing strategies to effectively engage moderate rural voters.

Good Message

As a blue collar liberal, I was really glad to see someone echoing concerns I’ve had and sharing their incredible underdog victory.

Dragged at times. But the voice was pleasant and I enjoyed it

Interesting read

The book's first part could have been trimmed down as it was overly idealistic. The second half of the book dealing with specifics scout the campaigns was what I wanted to read about.

I could summarize this book's lessons down to work harder and personalize your communications.

Fantastic book, narrator difficult to listen to.

The book was fantastic and involved but the narrator was frustrating, as if she had t read the book until the recording session and stumbling through words didn’t help.

Brianna Fernandez can't read

The book is great and I learned a lot about rural politics, but I couldn't stand the audio. The reader made a number of errors, and also got the intonation entirely wrong, stressing the wrong syllables and words, and generally over-stressing everything they read so that it sounded like a bad anime dub. It was infuriating to listen to.

Good Content, Terrible Narrator

The content of the book was good and I agree with the approach that the authors took in their campaign.

However the narrator literally sounded like a robot with an extremely unnatural cadence and terrible word flow. The out of place pauses make it sound like they pause ever time they get to the end of the line on the page before moving to the text on the line below. This make it difficult to listen to.