Democrats are on the verge of extinction in some rural areas. Becky Blackburn, one of only 32 Democrats left in Niobrara County Wyoming, the state with the lowest population.

She is called “the crazy Democrat” by her neighbors, but it’s meant more as a compliment than a derision.

There are fewer Democrats in some counties. In Blaine County in Nebraska, there are 20 Democrats and 21 Democrats in Clark County in Idaho. According to Associated Press data, Niobrara County Democrats are outnumbered the most by Republicans among the 30 states which track local party affiliation.

Wyoming, which voted Donald Trump with the largest margin, may have cemented its Republican dominance even further now that it has passed a state law making changing party affiliation more difficult.

The primary election on Tuesday will be the first since the new law came into effect.

It’s hard to be blue in the grassy hills and pine-strewn rangelands of Niobrara County, which borders Nebraska and South Dakota.

Blackburn, a paralegal working for the Republican County Attorney in her town, hears many right-wing opinions.

She said, “Normally, I just roll my eyelids and walk away. I know I’m losing the battle. “Maybe I am liked because I don’t say anything as much as I would like to.

She’s not politically timid. She displays an LGBTQ+ flag at her home in Lusk. It is a town of about 1,500 people and the seat of Niobrara county.

Blackburn buys Democratic signs in advance of the political season to replace stolen ones. She is approving of police reform, taxes for government services, and transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney.

Blackburn, who served on the Lusk Town Council for nine years and is open to these views but far too few in number to act upon them, seems well liked by many people.

“I won two elections here.” “Even though it’s nonpartisan people still know I have left-leaning value,” she said.

In three counties, Democrats accounted for less than 3% of the voters this year. This is up from just one county in 2020, but down from seven counties in 2016. According to AP data, there were no presidential election years in 2012, 2008 or 2004 with a lower percentage of Democratic registrations.

In recent years, the most Republican counties are concentrated in Idaho. The areas that are most Democratic, however, have a much more even distribution of voters.

Second in terms of Democratic dominance is the District of Columbia with 77% of its voters being Democrats. Breathitt county, Kentucky is first, with a tradition of 79% Democrats, but not all the way. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has family in Breathitt County. In 2020 this county voted 75% for Donald Trump.

Niobrara County wasn’t always so Republican. In 2012, it had twice as many Democrats as in 2004, and more than four-times as many in 2012.

The Democrats’ struggles in Wyoming are a reflection of the challenges the party faces across rural America where it has been losing support for years.

It wasn’t always like this. In 1970, the Democrats were a major political force in southern Wyoming where there were many union jobs and mining. The only remaining strongholds of the Democratic Party are the resort town of Jackson and the university town Laramie.

As Wyoming Democrats struggle to field viable candidates, many Democrats are switching their registration from voting in the Republican primaries and then returning for the general elections.

You feel dirty and sleazy when you do this. “But you do it anyway, and you change it as soon as possible because you don’t wish to receive Republican mailings,” Blackburn explained.

Republicans had enough. Wyoming’s legislature, in which the GOP holds over 90% of seats, passed a law last year that prohibited voters from changing party registration within three months prior to the August primary.

Chuck Gray, Wyoming’s Republican Secretary of State, stated that party switching had “undermined Wyoming’s primaries process’ sanctity”.

The Wyoming Republican and Democratic primary elections on Tuesday will mark the first time in recent memory that voters have not been able to switch their party affiliation.

There will be few Democrats to choose from. Unopposed candidates from all over the state are running for U.S. House of Representatives and Senate Democratic nominations.

No Democrats are running in Niobrara County. No Democrats are running in Niobrara County.

Ross Diercks is a well-known and beloved breakfast and lunch place in Lusk, and he’s always warmly welcomed at the Outpost Cafe.

Diercks, a former middle-school English teacher and Republican, decided that the GOP did not do enough to support education. In 1992, he defeated a Republican incumbent to begin an 18-year stint in the Legislature.

He was able to hold office because he knew his voters and stayed up-to-date on the issues. He resolved to do better when he received a C-minus in a National Rifle Association survey. He scored A’s in the survey for subsequent elections.

Many Republican legislators are friends. He sang at the funeral of a neighbor who died.

Diercks then temporarily switched parties in 2022 to vote for Harriet Hageman in the GOP primaries against Liz Cheney, the incumbent state representative. It’s hard to say how many Democrats followed Diercks, but he was not alone. Hageman, who is the daughter of the legislator he sang at his funeral for, won the race with a large margin.

Diercks is frustrated with the GOP because of the new law that prevents him and others from changing their registrations so easily.

How far will they go to limit the ability to vote of a person? “If it comes down to purifying a party from the voting level up to elected officials, there won’t be anyone who is pure enough to remain in the party,” Diercks stated.

Pat Jordan, a truck driver, supports many leftist goals, such as universal healthcare. However, he said that he registers only as a Republican.

Jordan, a resident of Niobrara County, said that the best way to influence meaningful change was to try and sway a dominant party. “You know, you need a government which serves all people. Not just Republicans, not only rural, not only urban, and certainly not just Democrats.

Last winter, locals from all over the city gathered to watch a snowball fight.