What ballot initiatives are you referring to? The only liberal one that I see which passed is Minimum Wage, which has passed in red states all across the country over the last several years (as have medicaid expansion and mar1juana legalization). This again points to a huge messaging problem when people will vote for your ideas but not the people behind them.
...all those red state "don't tread on me" sovereign citizens don't have any problem with getting medical aid as long as it's not called "Obamacare"...
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-swing-states/ Interesting article showing among other things that as we see in Texas Trump won big in rural areas and small towns and lost in the cities. Of course the Electoral College is another of the Constitutional anti-democratic abominations from our ancient, non amendable Constitution, which will soon see 1/3 of the folks from small states outvoting or at least having total veto power over the 2/3 living in big states. Another squeaker due to Electoral College. Given a thousand votes or so, In 2016 Trump won by 44,000 votes ( 3 swing states) and in 2020 Biden won by 67,000 votes in 3 swing states, plus 1 of Iowa's split electoral college districts. So to defeat the GOP which is now nearly totally dominated by Trumpism, you have to do something to appeal to rural voters. I would submit you can't do this by being moderate on "diversity" rural are often less exposed to diversity which leads to less personal experience on these issues and therefore more openness to being manipulated . It won't be on "immigration" -- they often have less interaction w immigrants. It won't be on "religion" at least not anytime soon as conservatives have dominance with their limited view of Christianity, which is subsidized by massive tax breaks. It won't be on "mass encarceration" or crime as they are not as exposed in general imho and often the mass encarceration industry provides many of their jobs. Maybe it can become on the "environment" as if now, then soon, they will see undeniable effects on crops or forests. The best chance is probably on economic issues for them, but what? Small farm subsidies? Breaking up Big Ag? monopolies that are eliminating family farms? Medicare for All? which would allow Doctors to move there and not worry about lack of decent fee paying patients? More Earned Income tax credits? from the Feds, including for the undocumented that still at least seasonally pick their crops so would have more money to spend locally. Federal subsidies for universal broadband? Federal subsidies for all schools?, with rural schools often being not as good. What?
