Quote collection
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"There's no question about it. If you look at the map, there's hardly any [Democrats representing rural districts]. There's me, [Rick] Nolan, [Tim] Walz, [Dave] Loebsack and Cheri Bustos. So that's five. And all the rest of them are in urban cities. That's a problem."
"Try to un-gerrymander these districts so that you're not packing all the Democrats into one district, so you've got districts that are competitive, so that you've got a shot at electing Democrats. But that's more a long-term proposition, if it can even be done."
"The only thing I can think to do is if the Democratic Party can do what the Republicans have done, which is go in there and take control of these legislatures and governors' areas."
"It was clear that [the number] just kept growing, and there were no [Hillary] Clinton signs. People were fed up."
"NAFTA's been a big problem for sugar."
"When it [NAFTA] was sold, we were supposed to get two or three times more exports to Canada or Mexico than they exported to us. It's been the exact opposite."
"[People] don't like the government telling them what to do or telling them how to live their lives."
"So [Republicans] packed all the Democrats into districts, very Democratic districts. What that's done is made our party urban, more liberal, and so those people are doing what their constituents want. But that's not what my constituents want."
"What's happened is the Republicans have been smart."
"I always run ahead of the ticket [compared to Democratic presidential candidates]. But this time there were a lot of people that just voted party line, a lot more than usual."
"I don't know how you change that. There's hardly anybody left like me in the Democratic Party in Congress. These districts have been so gerrymandered that, in most of them, a Democrat can't win. Somebody like me trying to start off today, he'd never get endorsed. Because I'm too conservative."
"Republicans have spent a lot of money redistricting and everything, getting control of these governorships and statehouses."
"[Rural voters] have a different view of the world than people do in these urban centers."
"It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened."
"I've tried to maintain my independence in Congress. Sometimes that has meant opposing my own party leaders."
"There's no question that [Donald] Trump got elected because of rural America. And our party still is in denial. They don't get it."
"The banks run the place."
"The New York Federal Reserve is a tool of the big banks."