The shadow of Thomas Jefferson and John Calhoun looms large over the 2026 elections for State and federal offices.
Mr Jefferson has a well-known quote: ‘I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. when they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.’
Mr Calhoun taught us that government functions more justly when all the interests of the political organism are represented and taken into account.
The history of the United States has proven the validity of their views. As the greater part of the peoples of the States have become landless city dwellers, dependent on a small class of plutocrats for their existence, unable to provide for most of their own needs, we have seen the political power of the urban centers rise dramatically while at the same time becoming terribly corrupt.
And with the rise in political power of the cities, the political influence of the rural areas has declined dramatically, such that their interests are not well attended to by those who are elected to office.
A system that is based primarily on popular vote totals manifestly benefits the Leftists who have a big structural advantage thanks to populous, Left-leaning urban counties/parishes. In many instances with this system, only a small minority of counties are deciding Statewide elections, amendments, etc., while the vast majority of conservative, rural counties are unable to influence the outcome in any meaningful way.
Those on the Right ought to push for a change, one that grants equal voting rights to all counties and parishes in a State, so that the candidate, referendum, and so on that gains the most counties, not simply the most raw votes, will be approved at the end of the election. This would ensure that a broader cross-section of a State’s population and interests are represented by the winning candidate and/or ballot measure, thus preserving what both Jefferson and Calhoun valued – rural control of politics and a consultation by the government of all the interests of a polity.
Several examples from the 2026 midterm elections will illustrate how unfair the current system is. All are US Senate elections (Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas). The margins of victory of the Democrat candidates in the popular vote were all quite close, the biggest being Talarico’s 55% and Ossoff’s 59%; the rest were closer to 50%. Keep those numbers in mind as we tally the counties that the Democrat candidates won (voting numbers via NBC News’s US Senate election results page).
Georgia: 40 counties won out of 159 total = 25.2% of the county vote won
Michigan: 14 counties won out of 83 total = 16.9% of the county vote won
Ohio: 15 counties won out of 88 total = 17.0% of the county vote won
Iowa: 15 counties won out of 99 total = 15.2% of the county vote won
Minnesota: 15 counties won out of 87 total = 17.2% of the county vote won
Kansas: 11 counties won out of 105 total = 10.5% of the county vote won
Texas: 39 counties won out of 254 total = 15.4% of the county vote won
None of the Democrat victories comes anywhere near to winning a majority of the counties in these States. Republican candidates’ margins of victory in the county count ranged from 74.8% on the low side to 89.5% on the high side, which far outdistance the Democrat margins in the raw popular vote. Folks on the Right in these and similarly affected States should be outraged. This is a gross injustice – the disenfranchisement of large numbers of rural voters – and should be remedied sooner, not later.
The promotion of legislation to create voting equality for all counties would be fairly easy to do: The centerpiece would be as easy as posting Kansas’s, Minnesota’s, etc., red and blue county maps on a social media page with a simple question, ‘Is it fair that only 10% or 17% of a State’s counties decide every Statewide election in Kansas/Minnesota?’
Leftists often try to give themselves a structural advantage in the US political system through congressional gerrymandering, novel judicial rulings, etc. Conservatives should turn the tables on the Leftists and do what they can to give themselves a structural advantage in each election cycle. A county-equality electoral system would go a long way to implementing such an advantage. And the best part is that it is not only wise, pragmatic electoral strategy, but it is also just, as it would remedy the very real injustice of disenfranchising millions of rural voters every time a Statewide election is held.
There is good precedent for this. The federal constitution gives each State equal representation in the US Senate, and the Electoral College also distributes electoral votes for the president using a method that gives more weight to less-populous, rural States than a strict popular voting method would. Ties in the Electoral College are also settled in the House by giving each State’s congressional delegation one vote, which is also contrary to a pure popular vote scheme. Those systems have served the union well by expanding representation in the federal government beyond the big urban centers. There is no reason why such beneficial principles shouldn’t be implemented at the State level, too, no matter the wrongly decided federal Supreme Court cases like Baker v Carr, which have tried hard to undermine a balanced representative system and replace it with one that decides everything by raw popular vote totals alone.
If a county-centered electoral system were in place in the seven States we mentioned in this article, there would be seven additional Republican senators in the US Senate. In other words, Republicans would likely still have the majority in the US Senate. And this doesn’t even consider governorships and ballot measures, many of which follow similar patterns of victory via a minority of Left-leaning, urban counties.
We are not here to cheerlead for either Democrats or Republicans, and sometimes both parties deserve a landslide loss like the Republicans just experienced. Our main concern is seeing truly just, Christian policies implemented at all levels of government, primarily here at the South, but also in her sister States. A simple way to accomplish that is to promote and implement county equality in every State. Rural, conservative voters should demand it – every chance they get.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
Sources:
https://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1300
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-elections/senate-results
Edgar Lee Masters’ book “The Tale of Chicago” illustrates how the only things novel to ever happen in the city, came from rural Illinois. Indeed reading quotes in his book from politicians raised in rural Illinois communities I found an entirely different, solid conservative tone. It’s striking.
The argument should be that empowering rural counties politically, will both inform and improve urban areas. Cities, the Nation are far better off pall mall when minorities are protected, especially rural minorities. You literally cannot lose
Edgar Lee Masters’ book “The Tale of Chicago” illustrates very clearly about how the only things novel in Chicago back then (1930) came from rural Illinois.
Granting rural counties equal sufferage can inform urban areas for the better. I’ve seen it first hand over and over again here today. But single party rule here gives rural Illinois no chance to be influential when it could be so helpful
didnt Georgia have this some years ago…a point system for urban, suburban and rural? in a way it has a genius hint to it. if a rural area needs new water infrastructure to accommodate irrigation for population growth they could have balance in some way perhaps against what an urban center may be demanding. i dont know for sure.
“Our main concern is seeing truly just, Christian policies implemented at all levels of government…”
“The Body of Christ is not here to reform the world system, solve the problems facing society, inaugurate social juetice, etc. While true believers can and should have a powerful impact for good wherever they are, we are not going to improve the world system about us. In fact, part of our task is to testify to the fact that the world is not going to be made acceptable to God but rather as the age progresses will grow worse, morally and spiritually, until Christ comes to put down man’s rebellion and establish His reign.”
“The Church is here to save men out of this world system, to deliver men from “the present evil world.” This is the way to make our ministry relevant to the realities ofour time. We are not here to save the wreck man has made of society. We are here to save perishing souls from the wreck doomed to destruction.
Tragically, when needed most the Church has become totally irrelevant and
ineffectual in the culture of our day as it flounders in confusion.”
“Seemingly aware of its impotence, movements abound to seek social and political power in order to gain attention to causes dear it. Yet for all the effort in everything from political action to new, contemporary methodologies, the world about us rushes forward largely untouched by the truth deposited in our care.”
“Why is this? What is the problem? Answers abound: lack of prayer, absence of real separated living, indifference to the lost and the task of world evangelism, disregard of the felt needs of those about us, etc. But wait: These are really the symptoms, the results. What is the core cause? It isn’t really that difficult to identify.”
“Departure from God’s message and program for our day as reveald throrgh the
epistles of Paul–this is the real root of the trouble. My friend, just as it was departure from Moses’ law that constantly got Israel into tnouble, with the Church it has been departure from Pauline truth. Just as surely as the dispensation of the law was committed to Moses, so surely was the dispensation of grace committed to Paul (Eph. 3:1-9).”
“Only when the Church returns to God’s program for today will it be able to fulfill its true role as “the piller and ground of the truth” (I Tim. 3: 15).”