63. New Rural Project Interview with Cynthia Wallace
Michelle Rathman: Hello one and all and welcome back to a brand-new episode of The Rural Impact. I am Michelle Rathman, and I am so grateful that you've come back to hear another conversation that works hard to connect those dots between policy and rural everything. Okay, so I gotta tell you, a lot has happened since the last time that we were together a few weeks ago.
I'm recording this message, opening message to you on a very hot and steamy Monday, July 28th. And since the last time we were together just a few weeks ago, as I said, so much has changed. And that is the same thing when I talk about today's guest. That was an interview that I did just a few weeks ago.
So, there's a lot of gap to fill in between. I just wanna give you a high level overview because you know, we have been talking so much about the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now known as H.R.1 signed into law and what that means for rural. And so I thought I would just kind of talk to you a little bit about some of what I've been reading.
Those math machines are churning away and we're getting a preview of what this all means for rural. But lemme just give you a, a few pieces of information. Again, high level overview. In short, really what we're looking at is the fiscal path for the US over the next decade extends Trump's 2017 tax cut policy and it's set to reduce taxes by a very impressive number of $4.5 trillion.
Before you get excited about that, it must be noted that by all analysis, the bulk of these enormous tax breaks will benefit large corporations and in quote, high income individuals. I think that's another way to say multimillionaires and the billionaire class. So, I think that's important for us to kind of put all that into context.
Okay, so what else does it do? Well? As you've been hearing a lot about, including on this podcast, Medicaid will be hit with the largest funding reduction somewhere in the neighborhood of about a trillion dollars. And this, is important 'cause it also factors in the cuts to federal spending for the Affordable Care Act over the next 10 years, and that really is a double whammy for hospitals.
I won't go into those details just yet, but that's important for us to note. Another hit that comes from those, from the, from the new law is that those renewable energy programs such as wind and solar, of course, you may know that these programs will be cut by almost $500 billion. And each of these things and so much more is definitely connected directly to rural and very significant and consequential ways.
And we're gonna be talking more about this in the realm of housing, of food and nutrition assistance. We're gonna be talking about infrastructure projects and so many more of these, as we move forward. But not today. Today's episode is, we're gonna make a little bit of a shift.
Okay. You might recall my conversation a few weeks ago with Anthony Flaccavento. Anthony is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative. If you have not heard that episode, I, do invite you to go back and have a listen to our conversation. But in that we discussed really focusing on building civic muscle. That was a, that was a big part of our conversation.
And we talked about strategies to engage community and voters, in particular, in discussions that help move people forward. And I mean, all people forward together in a community and working again to bridge that urban rural divide. And it was because of that conversation that I was connected with my guests that you're going to hear from today.
And my guest is a shining, I mean a shining example of what it means to build those bridges and close those gaps and how to get it done. And it's also about engaging and educating and organizing communities in ways that really do advance rural policy that is both equitable and contributes to closing those gaps between rural poverty and prosperity and building the all-important human infrastructure designed to ensure all rural citizens can use their civic power and engagement to foster and sustain vibrant and successful communities.
So. Drumroll please. My guest today is Cynthia Wallace, the Co-founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit New Rural Project, which focuses on making sure that the voices of rural, young people and marginalized residents in the state of North Carolina can be heard.
And as a result of the New Rural Project, you'll understand that is actually happening as we speak today. So with that said, it is the time when I invite you every episode to tune out the background noise, put yourself at your podcast frame, listening of mind, and hear my conversation with Cynthia Wallace.
And again, this conversation happened just before the sunning of the law. It's incredibly relevant. I encourage you to listen to the end because Cynthia and I talk about strategies for moving forward should we be in the place that we find ourselves in today. Okay. Deep breath. I am so ready for you to listen.
I hope you are too. So, let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, my goodness. Cynthia Wallace, Co-founder and Executive Director of New Rural Project, it is great to have you join us on The Rural Impact. Thank you for coming.
Cynthia Wallace: No, thank you so much for inviting me. I, there's nothing I enjoy more than talking about rural.
Michelle Rathman: Well, and especially of the work that you're doing in rural. So, Cynthia, our conversation today, as we were kind of talking before, could not be timelier. I miss joy, but we have to have these hard conversations 'cause we're recording on July 2nd for our listeners, and this is just one day after the Senate did the unimaginable, which has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act hard for me to say because it is so ugly where rural is concerned. And our listeners know as a result of this, and right now it hangs in the balance as of again, July 2nd. It's far-reaching impacts on virtually all taxpayers and notably, as I read the text, it includes several key provisions that directly affect tax exempt organizations. Of course, your organization is 501(c)4 nonprofit, and that aims to expand engagement in support of rural districts that currently have little voice in the civic and electoral process.
We're gonna talk all about that, and of course, it's also a gunning for limiting access to community resources as we know are already sparse. And folks are gonna find out just how much harder it's going to get. So, Cynthia, before we dive into all of that, for our listeners who are not familiar with your amazing work there in North Carolina, tell us all about it, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about conversations, which is what we do here on this show.
Cynthia Wallace: Awesome. Well, thank you once again. I'm Cynthia Wallace, and I live in Charlotte, but I am a rural girl at heart. I was born and raised in rural southeastern Georgia with no street address. We literally had a rural route and the area that I grew up in actually didn't have a formal name.
They simply called it 'up the road.' So that's how rural I am. My grandfathers on both my grandparents, honestly, on both sides of my family, they were farmers. And I was fortunate to have a dad who made his career in civil rights activism and a mom who made her career in textile factories where she actually fought for workers' rights as a young sewing factor factory employee.
So, it's deep in my roots. This work, rural is at the core of who I am and how this organization, the New Rural project came to be. It was started in 2021 after Helen Probst Mills and I both ran for office. She ran for North Carolina Senate '25, and I ran for the Ninth Congressional District. We weren't successful in those races, but we were still committed to why we were working, and we were running, which was to serve.
And after looking at the numbers and digging into conversations with folks, we really realized that there was such a missed opportunity to truly engage rural voters of color and working class voters. And so less than five months after the 2020 election, we founded the New World Project in April, 2021.
Michelle Rathman: And the work that you're doing is, amazing.
I've had a chance to like, dig into your website and read your blogs. I mean, it's so eye-opening, and I hope from this conversation we often say here that, the subjects that we're talking about here, they're not light, but they are meant to enlighten people.
And sometimes if you just plant a little seed thought that people could say, “Hey, we could do that as well.”
Cynthia Wallace: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Rathman: Let's talk about the work that you do around conversations. Again, we have conversations that connect the dots between policy and rural quality of life. You have found a way, a formula, I might say, for you to be able to engage people in your community and the, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, part of it, you know, the opportunity and the responsibility to become civically engaged. Let's talk, get into the details about how you all work.
Cynthia Wallace: Well, great. Well, one of the things that as we were starting this organization, and we've always said it and we continue to do it in everything we do is that our work begins and ends with listening.
The folks that we are looking to support and improve lives alongside are people that feel so marginalized, that feel unseen and unheard.
And so, we started that listening back in 2021 with focus groups, county conversations. We work in seven rural counties in North Carolina and inevitably, somebody listening might be from one of 'em, so I'm gonna say all seven. So, we do our work in Union, Anson, Richmond, Scotland, Robinson, Hulk and Moore Counties in North Carolina.
And so, we did polling and then we really did our front porch conversations.
Deep canvassing. And that's what we, we call all of our program’s conversations like you, you mentioned. And so what we did with our deep canvassing is that we went and talked to folks at their front porches 'cause we're in the, in the south and in rural places, so most folks have a front porch.
And we went to those doors, and we talked to them. Particularly, we focused on those folks who did not vote in the 2020 election. And we said, “Hey, you know, what were the barriers that caused you not to vote in that 2020 election?”
Michelle Rathman: And what did you hear?
Cynthia Wallace: Transportation was that, you know, not knowing enough about the candidates, was it, you know, not thinking your vote matters.
And we heard a variety of those things. Definitely not thinking their vote mattered. Really rose to the, to the top. but there were also transportation issues. There was also lack of knowledge about things like voting by absentee. Not thinking that was available to them, particularly younger voters or even a disabled voter who we went to their door and she said, well, “I, you know, I wasn't able to get there because I have a disability.”
And we're like, well, you could vote, you could have voted absentee, or they even have curbside voting, and this voter had no idea. And so with that front, we also looked at their issues also. What are the issues that concern you? And what we found based on that conversation was that we should be focusing our work on those critical issues that people care about and connecting the dots between their issues and getting more civically engaged.
And it basically laid the groundwork for our focus on four critical issues, which include public education, healthcare access, increasing public safety and reducing crime and gun violence, which we is one of the top issues we heard top three in any population we spoke to. And then finally voting rights.
And so that's what we kind of got from our deep canvassing and community events. And we're always asking questions. We're always there to listen so that we continue to hone and revise those things. And
Michelle Rathman: You, you also do a couple of things that you do that I, I, you know, I really appreciate. I, I have a program called Shop Talk that we do with our hospital, and the motto is, tell them you care, show them you care as much about their health as you do their hair.
You've engaged beauty shop and barbershops in these conversations, and I find that in those spaces, it, it just, it's a different tone, right?
It's not contentious. It's not a town hall. Talk to me a little bit about how you get those shop owners involved and what, what some of the results have been.
Cynthia Wallace: Yeah, so one of the things that when we were doing our polling and we were looking at the data from the 2020 election, we saw that there was an alarmingly low voter turnout in particular for folks 18 to 40. And when we looked at that in like biracial demographic, black men in that age range in our seven focus counties had a 35 to 40% turnout rate of registered voters in the 2020 election.
Michelle Rathman: That's painful.
Cynthia Wallace: Yes. And so we said, you know, when we, we did focus groups, we saw a little fraternity occur in the black men's focus group of people that didn't know each other. And we said, how do we reengage them in a space that feels comfortable? Every person has been to a barber shop, even if they're a baldheaded guy, they probably had hair when they were younger or they've taken their sons, or every woman has, you know, been to a beauty salon.
And even thinking about my own experience, you know, my beauticians have been counselors, therapists, I've probably shared in many ways some things with them that I might not have shared with others. And so you're very relaxed.
So, we reached out to a barber shop owner who had partnered with us actually at the beginning in our Get Out the Vaccine Work, so our GOTV with the V being vaccine.
And we said, we are thinking about a program for men. Would you be interested? And he was a community advocate and he's like, of course, just let me know. So. A few months later we're like, we're ready. We had a young man that helped coin the name of our barbershop program called F.A.D.E, Fruitful, African American Discussions on Empowerment, and he opened his shop for us to have three to four weeks of sessions.
Where we brought in young men. I mean, it's all, it's all gen it's a multi-generational conversation, of course, but we try to make sure we get as many 18 to 40 year olds in the, in the space. And then we talked about those issues that we've heard from them that they care about. So we talked about jobs and entrepreneurship.
We talked about public safety and policing. We had frank conversations about that. We always have a conversation about civic engagement. You know, who are your elected officials? And we try to mirror that population with those elected officials from their community. Many folks had never met their county commissioner.
They'd never met a council person. So we bring them into the space, and we basically have a conversation. And we always have that conversation guided by someone from the local community. We work in seven counties. We can't be in, we can't be in all seven counties. We can't live in all seven counties. So we make sure that work is rooted in familiar community members.
And then finally with our barbershop host, we make them the co-chair of the program. So their name is at the top, the barbershop that everybody knows, like everybody knew Triad Barber, you know, triad Barber School or Tight Cuts Barbershop. So when you say, Hey, this event is right at downtown at Tight Cuts or at the Triad Barber School, they're like, oh, Garrett Like, yes.
And so they're a trusted member of the community as well. And then finally we actually have a little incentive, you know, and I got this from another nonprofit. Where, you know, they're here, they're listening, they're engaged, and we're having a conversation. So we are learning just as much from them as we're hoping to teach them.
And so we offer for every session that someone attends a $25 gift card to thank them for their time. And you know, and so we've done this in four of our, we've had barbershop programs in four of our seven counties. In 2023, the women were saying, what about us?
Michelle Rathman: I love it. Can I say The name The name of the program is CURLS
Cynthia Wallace: Yes.
Michelle Rathman: Cultivating Unified Relationships with Ladies for Success. I love it.
Cynthia Wallace: And honestly, this is the most amazing story we, like I said, we do our work in listening. So as we were moving from barbershop to beauty salon, we had a community meeting to talk to the ladies in the pilot county to understand, like kind of to share what we did with the men and see if that fit them or were there tweaks that they wanted to make with the program.
And we actually added health and wellness, mental health and wellness because of that conversation with women in an Anson County beauty salon. And they came up with the name, we had CURLS, but they came up with what should be in the acronym. I wish we had it recorded. It was a thing of beauty to see them all collaborating and figuring out what should CURLS stand for, for.
And so they are embedded and a part of it, and we do that before every program. We go speak to that community and say, look, we've got a model, but we wanna make sure it fits what your community needs.
And we make adjustments like that.
Michelle Rathman: I think it's just fascinating. I wanna to cover a few more and then just talk a little bit about kind of the, the progress between 2020 and 2024 and what's ahead. So you've got the young people's conversations as well. Talk to us a little bit about that. Which to your point, it's so important because so many young people have sat out.
What I find so amazing is that so many people, I mean, I, I just talked to my young, very young hairdresser and she doesn't, she's like, oh, I didn't hear that. I didn't know that. You know, the disengagement, it's not for lack of, you know, being a good person. It has nothing to do with that. There's just such a lack of curiosity, and I think so many young people just check out because it's just so much, maybe overwhelming.
Cynthia Wallace: And there's so much in the news. I mean. Right now. Something that we're battling, that we weren't battling, I don't think, in 2008 and 2012 when President Barack Obama's campaign energized and galvanized so many folks, was the misinformation.
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
Cynthia Wallace: And so, I think that is also like that next other thing that is the battle for young people's attention, young people's understanding.
And when there's so much chaos in the news that makes them check out. So, what we've done with that program is we've been virtual like this. We started them, you know, kind of during the pandemic and we make sure we've centered it around other young people. So, our presenters, our moderators, our speakers are all in that 18 to 40ish range.
So, actually the North Carolina Democratic Party Chair now, Anderson Clayton, I had met her because she was doing rural work, and I knew some of the work she was doing to engage folks in her, I think it was Roxboro, I think is her town, to get more people diverse folks elected in that, municipal election of 2021.
And so I said, well, you're a young person. You've got to highlight our first young person's conversation. And so we did that. We have, we've had young, local elected officials all in that 18 to 40-year-old range. Talk to others. We've had young entrepreneurs talk in that age range. Actually having and leading the conversation.
So that's one of the things we've done so far. But it is, it's still a difficult thing. I mean, we do a lot of the door to door. We also, one of the things that even with our barber shop. We look at those programs also as an entryway for us to continue engagement. So, some of the young people that we've met in those conversations at the barbershop or the beauty salon actually have gone on to volunteer with us.
Some of them have gone on to canvas with us.
Three young men from our aunts and first one actually started their own organization. Sandhills Voter Initiative after coming out of the barbershop. We, you know, so, and they are, they're all, they were all in their thirties, you know, so those programs, we, they build on each other.
And one of the things we say about New Rural Project is kinda, once someone comes in, they can't come out. So, they get engaged
Michelle Rathman: like Hotel California.
Cynthia Wallace: Yes, they, they get engaged with us and we have a way to kinda keep holding them on.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. Like the last one I wanna talk to you about is the candidate conversations. Because I, I mean, I, again, I think this is so for, just from where I sit, there are so many young people who have no idea who's their mayor, who's on their city council, their county commissioners, and yet so many of the decisions that affect directly quality of life come out of that local level. So talk to us about the candidate conversations. What do those entail? Who, who are they targeting?
Cynthia Wallace: Well, they're targeting the community and one of the things we were doing when we did our polling, one of the highest things that reasons that we heard people didn't vote or what might make them more likely to vote is knowing the candidates. And if I had a dollar for every person that said to me, I didn't vote, I don't know those candidates.
So.
Michelle Rathman: Judges, clerks, all that
Cynthia Wallace: Just the bank, even the main ones, they're county commissioners. They don't know the candidates, you know, they know what they see on tv, but they don't know what's actually happening locally.
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
Cynthia Wallace: And so, because of that, we launched our candidate conversations and we try to make them unique. We meet people where they are.
We've hosted them in a barbershop, like actually in a barbershop. We brought candidates there to a space that may be a little bit more comfortable to, than even going to a church for a candidate forum. We've done them in a community park with the legal women voters. So, if people were even in the park that day, they would see what was happening.
We also did one with one of our partners in a community center speed networking style.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, I love it.
Cynthia Wallace: So we try to make 'em fun, we try to make them different to hopefully draw in more people 'cause they're not getting, you know, traditional, you sit there, you hear from some people on the stage, which we do those too.
But we also just try to add some fun and some life and some energy into, you know, what is so important and what breaks down the barriers to them voting. And then finally, even with the barbershops and beauty salons, we've had one of those every year in like September and right before the election.
And so, we've had people get to know an elected official that mirror their demographic and kinda get engaged in ways that they probably wouldn't have. We had a 22-year-old last year, attended two different Curls in two counties. She was so interested in investing in what we were doing. She traveled and it was the six session of that second Curls that she finally decided to check her voter registration.
And a week or two later, after early voting started. She posted on social media her I voted sticker,
Michelle Rathman: Oh, that's wonderful. I mean, those are huge wins.
Cynthia Wallace: and it's, yeah, and it takes time. It's not quick. It's not fast work.
Michelle Rathman: No, but you guys have made progress. I mean, so you wrote a piece, a couple things I wanna just touch on here. in January 25, you wrote a piece called 'Grassroots Gumption, How Real Voices have Changed North Carolina's Ground Game.' How has it changed the ground game?
Cynthia Wallace: Well, I think like one of the things we hear in a lot of these communities is no one has ever been to my door.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, wow.
Cynthia Wallace: And so, like just literally having the resources that we had last year, we were able to actually go down dirt roads. No one's going down a dirt road to talk to a voter.
New Rural Project did.
One of my organizers was I was passing him coming into the office because he was going to help a guy get from being un being stuck after a rain off a dirt road.
So, you know, and the area we work in, I, I call it, you know, we hear, we talk about like, you know, grocery store deserts, you know, food deserts.
These communities are civic deserts.
Michelle Rathman: Wow.
Cynthia Wallace: And so, by the work we're doing you know, we are bringing them, bringing the information to them. And, you know, the reason we feel like we are making an impact is folks are now starting to come to us with issues or come to us and say, we, you've done this program, we heard you did a health fair, you know, talking about Medicaid and bringing these, you know, access to this material and information.
Can you do one with us?
Michelle Rathman: That's wonderful. I, I really hope our listeners. Cynthia, before I let you go again, I, I could talk to you all afternoon. What, because I, I think that what you have as a model that could be replicated, I work in so many re very remote communities and the same conditions apply. You know, every place is unique. I don't say one is like the other, but in terms of just the conditions, the access, the, the roads and so forth, I'm concerned about things like you know, mail-in ballot ballots of what's gonna happen with the United States Post Office. I mean, these are the kind of the things that keep me up at night.
So if, if any of our listeners that are in North Carolina, or it doesn't matter where they are, what one tool is in your toolkit that our listeners can take with them to, that you think based on your work, can really work to advance equitable rural policy? What, what might that be? You know, obviously aside from listening, what might be something more tangible?
Cynthia Wallace: Yeah. And I, you know, I I, right now, obviously as we talked about right before we started is we've got just a, an awful bill
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
Cynthia Wallace: that is going to, you know, decimate in, in rural communities, especially rural hospitals and rural healthcare systems. So, I think the biggest thing that I can't leave this call without saying is call your congress person.
Urge them to vote against this bill and do some research and find out, you know, what's the impact of it will be for you and your community. And then tell them that.
You know, I think that's probably the, the, the one thing right now 'cause it's just so urgent. But the other thing is, you know, go to your community.
And I think it also still begins with listening, but also partner with other organizations that are out there. So, if you're just like, I'm just a regular old citizen, I don't know where to start. Find out what organizations like a new rural project like a, you know, common cause or a democracy and C or N-A-A-C-P is in your community so that you can find that that group that can help you get engaged and get involved.
So, I think that's the first step. And if you're interested in starting a group like this. You can go on the rural pro new rural project site and send us a note. Or my email, [email protected]. When we were starting our nonprofit Michelle, I literally Googled other rural organizations and I had lots of conversations with, rural Utah.
Michelle Rathman: Wow.
Cynthia Wallace: He talked, he, he, I sent him an email. He picked up the phone
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I think
Cynthia Wallace: I just talked to other folks who were also going down the road where we want that. We wanted to go.
Michelle Rathman: It's a support. It's such a supportive community and there's just so much, just, just, it's so inspiring and empowering and there's, I'm gonna just throw this out there too. You know, by the time this conversation drops, we may have this awful bill signing the law, and I'm gonna share this with our listeners.
And Cynthia, if you have something to say on the other side. Just because it passes doesn't mean the phone should stop ringing because at the end of the day, the deficits that we are going to see and badly needed services, you know, all the people who are losing healthcare and so forth, they have to own it. And so you need to keep the phones ringing to find out how they're gonna remedy, you know, what they've taken away. Where is that gonna come from it? The work can't stop just because the bill may or may not pass.
Cynthia Wallace: No, I, I agree. And, and there are a lot of also community actions that are happening. You know, we had the No Kings on marches on back on June 14th.
And then on July 17th there are actions being done to I guess in honor of you know, the late congressman. Good trouble. So it's about
Michelle Rathman: Yes,
Cynthia Wallace: and late congressman, John Lewis.
Michelle Rathman: yes, yes.
Cynthia Wallace: And so, go look for those opportunities also to make your voices heard. And we've got an election in 2026.
Michelle Rathman: I say be civil. Be persistent, be honest. Right? And stick together and talk about the policies and how these policies are impacting rural quality of life. Oh my gosh. So real quick, you are supportive, you know you're not-for-profit. How can folks support your work?
Cynthia Wallace: Yeah, so they can find us at new rural project.org. N-E-W-R-U-R-A-L-P-R-O-J-E-C t.org.
Michelle Rathman: Get it up on our website to make sure people can click right through.
Cynthia Wallace: Yeah, if you can click there, you can fa follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, all at New Rural Project, so you can keep up with us, find out what we're doing. So yeah, so we, we definitely need your support.
It's a, it's a tough year with so much chaos happening in the world. And I think an organization like ours and like the Rural Urban Bridge initiatives, our friends at Ruby or Down home North Carolina, these organizations are more important now than ever, and we need your support.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And we will do everything we can to help lift you up. Cynthia Wallace, it has been truly a pleasure and I'm gonna be in, in your state very soon, so you better believe I'm gonna look you up.
Cynthia Wallace: Okay, you, you, I'll get you my number. So, let's definitely do it.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, put me to work. It's so wonderful. All right. For the rest of you, do not go anywhere because I'll be back with some closing thoughts on the Rural Impact. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
Michelle Rathman: A heartfelt thanks to Cynthia Wallace from New Rural Project for joining us. I certainly do appreciate her time and, and insights. Really enjoyed my conversation with her and I hope that you were enlightened as well. I encourage you to visit their website so you can learn all about their great work.
We'll make sure that we put that link on our website and that is the ruralimpact.com. Really easy for you to remember the rural impact.com. And there you'll find, as I said, links to her site as well as several other resources that we you've got coming your way. Now, we also invite you when you go to that website to subscribe because when you do, you will be joining our growing community of those who really wanna make sure that they stay in the, know about all the way policies are impacting rural quality of life.
So, thank you for subscribing. We do appreciate our growing community. Now, before I leave you today, I do wanna end the show with some information about rural civic engagement elections and voting, because of course, all of these things are connected. You can't disconnect them, and while there is no shortage of policy, they call it kind of the shock and awe of policy that's coming our way, it really is imperative for us to be keeping our eyes and our advocacy efforts on key election policy trends.
Again, there's no escaping how connected those are to our quality of life. So, for that, I turned to Voting Rights Lab, and this is what I read. This is something that just came out today on the 28th of July. and it goes like this.
In 2025, we've seen a significant shift in the makeup of election laws enacted by state legislators now since their team, thus, the Voting Labs team began systematically tracking legislation in all 50 states in 2021. Each year, they saw more than twice as many new laws expanding access to the ballot as new laws restricting it. That trend ended this year with only one in three new laws improving voter access and election administration in 2025, the lowest percentage we've ever recorded they go on to say.
So with that, it's important to note that while the number of state election laws passed as of June 30th of this year is nearly identical to those pasts at the same point last year. The landscape has shifted dramatically compared to the first half of 2024 when they saw not only fewer laws improving voter access enacted, but the number of restrictive laws enacted increased by 50%.
That is a significant shift. So a few other things by the numbers, that they shared on their website. There were 120 laws enacted, for voting eligible Americans living in states that enacted restrictive laws. That number is 58.7 million. Let me say that again. 58 7 million voters, voting eligible Americans living in states that enacted restrictive laws that.
Again, a very significant portion of our population. I haven't done the rural calculations yet, but you better believe I'm going to states that considered restrictive proof of citizenship laws. That was 27. That's nearly four times the number in 2023, and then another big number, 50%, and that is the percentage of election bills that passed a chamber in key 2026 Battleground Strait States, excuse me, that are restrictive.
Now, broken down a few other little factoids with where numbers are concern. election related bills enacted in Republican controlled states with 76. On the other side, democratic controlled states, just 25 election related bills and acted, and in split control states, that's 19.
So friends. Again, because all roads to quality of life are paid by policy. And with that, we know that policy is decided on by those we elect into offices from our rural towns and cities to counties and congressional districts. Civic engagement is calling. And so my invitation to you is to consider answering and making sure that you have the information you need to make a voting plan and find ways to become more civically active in your own community.
Because until we do, more voices are heard. Um. Probably gonna keep having conversations about the adverse effects of policy, and I would much rather turn the table and talk about more optimistic changes in policy shifts. And if you've got some of those for me, believe me, I wanna hear from you. So with that said, my thanks to Brea Corsaro and Sarah Staub for all that they do for this podcast.
And to all of you, I again, am so appreciative. And until we meet again, I say it always take really good care of yourself. And to the best of your ability, all those around you. We will see you soon on a brand new episode and it's a doozy we've got in the works for you on the Rural Impact.
