{"id":884,"date":"2026-08-19T14:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=884"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:10:22","slug":"meet-alissa-ellman-rust-belt-populist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=884","title":{"rendered":"Meet Alissa Ellman, Rust Belt Populist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Can the current wave of progressive populism move from its successes in big cities to wins in America\u2019s rural communities and Rust Belt? The answer will likely decide whether Democrats can wrest control of Congress this fall and what the nation\u2019s politics will look like for years to come.<\/p>\n

Read more Hubert Harrison\u2019s Brand of Black Radicalism<\/a><\/p>\n

In the far northwest corner of New York State, in a sprawling House district that takes more than four hours to drive across from end to end, Alissa Ellman is inventing her own brand of progressive populism in a race against one of Donald Trump\u2019s closest allies in Congress.<\/p>\n

Ellman, 42, is the Democratic nominee in New York\u2019s 24th Congressional District, an expanse populated by dairy farms, apple orchards, and small towns with populations that rarely surpass 10,000. A child of a working-class family, Ellman joined the US Army at 17, was sent to Afghanistan, was exposed to the Army\u2019s toxic burn pits there, and got a deadly cancer. She beat the cancer with medical care from the Veterans Administration and later went to work at the VA helping other veterans get needed services. Then, in February 2025, she was among the first federal workers fired by Elon Musk and DOGE.<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer plucked her from her small Lockport, NY, home to be his symbolic guest for Donald Trump\u2019s State of the Union speech. Ellman also did a series of national news interviews, on MSNBC and elsewhere. Blunt and plainspoken, she quickly drew the attention of network producers. Trump administration officials also took notice and offered her job back on the condition that she stop talking to the press.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Fuck you, I\u2019m running for Congress,\u2019\u201d Ellman said.<\/p>\n

Ellman\u2019s November opponent is Representative Claudia Tenney, the most ultra-MAGA member of the state\u2019s House delegation. (One of Tenney\u2019s top legislative priorities is to make Trump\u2019s birthday a national holiday.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked to approximately 20,000 rural New Yorkers and I ask them all the same question: What matters to you most? And overwhelmingly, it\u2019s just cost. Their electrical has doubled, their cost for interest has doubled,\u201d said Ellman.<\/p>\n

But the way Ellman talks about cost issues here differs from many other progressive candidates around the country. \u201cStop using buzzwords like \u2018affordability.\u2019 You have to talk about these issues like a human being and not like an MSNBC host on TV. Talk about the actual electric bill. Talk about the fact that people aren\u2019t moving out of their parents\u2019 homes till they\u2019re 30. Talk about the cost of food, of gas, and maintaining a car.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut here, people also want to talk about actual solutions. It\u2019s like when the plumbing breaks in your house. You hire a plumber, you bring in a pipe, you screw it together. People want to know what all of those steps are. They don\u2019t want to just be told that tomorrow you\u2019re going to get up and all the pipes are going to be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellman said that also applies to the other big issue she hears about while campaigning\u2014the country\u2019s broken healthcare system.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedicare for All\u201480 percent of people do not know what that even means. They\u2019re like, \u2018That sounds like some stupid liberal buzzword.\u2019 We have to get people to buy into this. Why don\u2019t we take Medicare for All and initially cover everybody who does physical labor, expand Medicare for those people down to age 45. Why don\u2019t we do that first? Because then we get the buy-in from the people who really need this the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candidates who campaign in places like this also need to be prepared for voters who bring up hot-button social issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re talking to a person who\u2019s super right-wing, they\u2019ll often immediately bring up trans people. And I\u2019ve learned to just push that away. I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m not here to talk about the propaganda of social issues. I\u2019m here to talk about why your electric bill is $750 for a three-bedroom house every month. I\u2019m here to talk about the practical everyday stuff, like is the snow getting plowed?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The other hot-button topic in communities like these is guns, which Ellman says is just built into the culture here.<\/p>\n

Read more Vincent Bugliosi\u2019s Trophy Prosecution Wasn\u2019t Charles Manson\u2014It Was the Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou grew up as a 10-year-old getting taken out to the big field behind your house and your dad set up some cans and you sat there and you shot at \u2019em and you learned some gun safety rules. Then one day when you\u2019re around 12, they\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, wanna go deer hunting with me? We really gotta fill the freezer this winter.\u2019 And then you go out and you deer hunt for six hours silently in the woods with your dad. Maybe you don\u2019t even shoot at a deer.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of places are 30 or 40 minutes away from a police station. You think that you\u2019re going to wait around if you\u2019re getting robbed. There\u2019s bears and foxes and you have a small dog or a cat. If we\u2019re going to reform gun laws and burn the political capital that\u2019s going to take, then make a law that\u2019s actually effective. I think that it would be a lot smarter to talk to gun owners and involve them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another issue that Ellman talks about often is a rare one for a progressive woman candidate\u2014the struggles of working-class men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I have a unique perspective because I was in the Army and I worked with a lot of these people. I\u2019m also married to a very blue-collar working-class guy. What I really think it comes down to is that they feel they\u2019re being screwed, and they\u2019re not wrong. But who are they being screwed by?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about blue-collar working-class men who get up at four in the morning, go outside when it\u2019s four feet of snow on the ground, shovel their driveway, go work outside all day throwing drywall up or pouring roads, hurting their hands, their backs, their knees. I think it makes them people we should really be focused on taking care of in this country. They are the backbone of society. I mean, you like flushing your toilet. You like turning on a light switch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sick of their real-life work being less valued than, say, intellectual work. We should be moving that Social Security age down for those people. Do you think your body\u2019s going to last till 65 when you\u2019re picking up 350 pounds of drywall every day for 15 years?\u201d<\/p>\n

You also run into a lot of hardcore Trump supporters here. \u201cMy answer is connection,\u201d said Ellman. \u201cI talk to them about fishing or hunting or what they like to do. I talk to them about the places that we agree, like, yeah, we should be more fiscally responsible. I think we gotta stop pretending that we have all the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellman also hears story after story about the personal cost of political division. \u201cThere\u2019s been so many times that I\u2019ve been told by people, \u2018I don\u2019t talk to my brother anymore. I don\u2019t talk to my dad. I don\u2019t go to church anymore. I\u2019m not in the VFW anymore because of MAGA.\u2019 That\u2019s the wrong answer. The right answer is to sit next to those people, smile, and boldly be who you are.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no shame in standing up for the marginalized. To me that\u2019s very Christ-like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not doing this for any other reason than to fight for people,\u201d Ellman told me, \u201cfor my friends and family, my community, the children that my children will grow up with. That\u2019s who I\u2019m fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Win or lose in November, progressive populists looking to build support in communities like these would do well to listen to Ellman, especially those in New York City who harbor ambitions statewide down the road.<\/p>\n

Read more Attacks on Black Citizenship Are Attacks on Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Alissa Ellman, Rust Belt Populist - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=884\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Alissa Ellman, Rust Belt Populist - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=884\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-19T14:10:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Meet Alissa Ellman, Rust Belt Populist\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-19T14:10:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884\"},\"wordCount\":1383,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/4c3bcfc7832145e6729470c44cd4353e.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=884\",\"name\":\"Meet Alissa Ellman, Rust Belt Populist - 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