“All politics is local” can sound like an old-fashioned idea now. For much of this century, state and local campaigns have been shaped by national debates. Candidates for governor, county commission, and even school board have adopted their parties’ most combative positions, often bringing culture-war arguments into races that have little to do with residents’ day-to-day concerns.
Over the past dozen years, that national focus has been amplified by one especially divisive figure. Increasingly, even in a local contest, the question seems to be whether a candidate supports Donald Trump or opposes him.
This midterm season initially looks familiar. Democrats are running ads that tie Republicans to an unpopular president, while Republicans are warning that their opponents would usher in socialism. Negative campaigning can work, perhaps especially when more voters say they dislike both major parties.
Yet that widespread frustration may offer a small reason for hope. A Republican president who has lost touch with parts of his own base, alongside a Democratic Party still struggling after its own recent setbacks, has pushed some candidates to set national talking points aside and make local concerns their focus.
In Iowa, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand has turned away from standard partisan messaging and put water quality and farm runoff at the center of his campaign. Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico has featured small-town mayors and football coaches discussing rural hospital closures and worries that data centers could take over farmland.
In Ohio, both Senate candidates, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted, have criticized data centers and the higher electricity costs they say are affecting residents. Republican candidates in northern border states, including Susan Collins, John Sununu, and Michele Tafoya, have also argued that the trade conflict with Canada is hurting people in their regions.
Affordability, tariffs, and data centers all have national dimensions. Still, when candidates emphasize how those issues affect their own communities—even if that means departing from their party’s usual line—it suggests they are more willing to campaign on local terms. A Brookings Institution review published in September found that, although national politics remains influential, state-level concerns are playing a larger role in shaping individual races than they have in recent years.
A stronger return to local politics would be welcome. The priorities of a Maine lobsterman or an Iowa corn farmer are not necessarily the same as those of an Atlanta-area office worker or a Silicon Valley employee. Voters want representatives who understand their particular circumstances, and a local focus can help make that possible.
There may be a broader benefit, too. Political scientists have linked the nationalization of American politics—and the polarization that comes with it—to the country’s democratic decline. A 2023 study of congressional elections spanning nearly two centuries described today’s politics as unusually nationalized, and therefore highly polarized.
When people identify with one of two political camps as if they were sports teams, and mostly follow national news, local disputes can quickly become arguments about national ideology. Campaigns recognize that. One 2026 study found that ads aimed at national donors tended to be more ideologically extreme than ads directed at local voters.
Campaigns such as Sand’s and Talarico’s show how candidates can bring attention back to practical concerns that are less partisan. That approach could help a Democrat win the governorship in Republican-leaning Iowa, while a Republican wins a Senate seat in Democratic-leaning Minnesota. The common thread would be connecting with what residents in each state actually care about.
There are limits to how optimistic anyone should be. Politics still offers plenty to object to. Vivek Ramaswamy’s support for an ad casting doubt on his opponent’s account of being raped as a child by her indicted stepfather drew anger from both parties.
Meanwhile, the Mary Peltola campaign’s effort to support a candidate sharing her opponent’s name, apparently to confuse voters, and its subsequent denials have given new life to allegations of election misconduct.
National stakes are also impossible to ignore. Control of the House and Senate is on the ballot, and in many races, the outcome may still turn on the unpopularity of the man who has dominated American politics for more than a decade.
But as Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall recently noted, senators elected this year will spend twice as much of their term with Trump out of office as with him in office. It may be worth starting now to think about what politics could look like beyond the current moment.
With a little luck, it will be more local.
