ABOUT
What We Believe: Resistance
You can’t say we weren’t warned, but too many Americans didn’t listen. And now we face an unprecedented moment in American history. Not since Lincoln and the Civil War, have our freedoms and democracy been threatened at home as they are today. We need to fight back. And Rural Freedom Network pledges to aid the American Resistance Movement.
We Create Media to Fight Extremists and Elect Democrats
The Rural Freedom Network is a grassroots media organization supporting Democratic candidates to reclaim our Democracy and to ensure it remains is safe and secure. We are a political action committee specializing in creating effective political media for our Democratic candidates and Democratic values. We move in early, fast, often, and hard across the media spectrum: broadcast, digital, social media, radio, and print. Among other things, we create and disseminate hundreds of thousands of postcards each year.
What We’re Doing in 2025
We’re going early into rural districts where special elections will be held – to turn Red congressional districts blue – BEFORE many Republicans have Democratic challengers. We’ll employ our creative, unique, and effective approach to undermine extremists and motivate the local population about: a) the damage Trump and his accomplices in the Congress are doing to our Democracy, our relations with our allies, public health, and to the daily lives of working families.
We’ve Already Made an Impact
- 2024 – We went early into rural swing districts in the critical states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio – BEFORE many Republicans had Democratic challengers. In a very tough election year, we helped flip two NY Congressional districts blue. We worked to undermine extremists and motivate the local population about: a) the real threat now to democracy that the GOP poses; and b) how Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats make lives better for working families by defending women’s rights, addressing the climate crisis, addressing the border crisis, lowering drug costs, gas prices, and interest rates, while increasing the number of good-paying jobs and opportunity for all, while working to have the big corporations and very wealthy individuals pay their fair share.
- 2023 – RFN expanded its reach and influence to include the critical Red state of Ohio, the home of Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. Sherrod told us that even a 3% reduction in the Republican vote in rural counties would ensure his reelection. So, RFN created messaging supporting abortion rights in OH, helping secure wins in several Red counties. In Pennsylvania, RFN created a number of hard-hitting messages supporting safe schools, opposing book banning, and reinforcing the benefits of Sen. Bob Casey’s and Rep. Susan Wild’s votes for the Biden infrastructure bills.
- In Pennsylvania, RFN created a number of hard-hitting messages supporting safe schools, opposing book banning, and reinforcing the benefits of Sen. Bob Casey’s and Rep. Susan Wild’s votes for the Biden infrastructure bills.
- Our unique work in NY followed similar lines of attack. We repeatedly hammered Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro’s vote for “one of the most dangerous men in America,” MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson.
- 2022 – RFN continued working in rural New York, New Hampshire, and Red areas of Massachusetts, but we also expanded our efforts in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, where right-wing radicals were attempting to restrict voting rights.
- 2021 – RFN developed campaigns to attack ultra-conservative Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney in NY22 and to support Democratic congressman Chris Pappas in NH1.
- 2019 and 2020 – RFN took aim at the only Republican incumbent at the federal level from New England: Maine’s Susan Collins. Sadly, she was re-elected, but we remain undaunted.
- 2017 and 2018 – RFN created ads across the media spectrum to help defeat incumbent Republican Congressman John Faso in NY19, who lost to Democrat Antonio Delgado in a stunning upset.
How We Operate
We start early, not waiting until a candidate is chosen and big-money media starts dominating. By then, people have become numb and dismissive of most political advertising. Sides are taken, positions hardened. Convincing swing voters that Democratic values are their values and that Democrats deliver for them is so much easier early in the cycle. We reach out when Republican incumbents normally have the air waves and attention all to themselves. We move early, fast, often, and hard across the media spectrum: broadcast, digital, social media, radio, and print.
We Work with Local Activists
Wherever we choose to work, we never work alone. In every campaign we seek to partner with local activists who know the lay of the land, to learn from them, and to use our skills and experience to provide them with the materials (social media ads, postcards, etc.) they need to defeat Republicans and elect Democrats.
About the Rural Freedom Network
Soon after the beginning of the Trump administration – with a constant stream of lies coming from the administration, with the fracturing of foreign alliances, with cozying up to dictators, with immigration officers ripping babies from their mothers’ arms and putting them in cages, with Trump embracing white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA, with the ascendance of big money interests and corporations, with hate talk and demeaning labels replacing respect, with people doubting that our democracy could be preserved – several long-time Democratic activists in Western Massachusetts decided to step up: counter action was necessary. RFN is led by attorney and former state legislator Sherwood Guernsey and his team of highly experienced and creative political strategists, including vice president Lee Harrison, our writer; and Ben Hillman, our incredible creative director.
About Our Name
Since the early 1990s, Republicans have embraced a toxic brand of attack politics, even attempting to own the word “Freedom.” Many of us remember “Freedom Fries” in the Congressional cafeteria and, of course, today’s rightwing “Freedom Caucus” in the House of Representatives, which has included anti-freedom extremists such as Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, and Mark Meadows. We simply could not allow that to happen. Hence our name, the Rural Freedom Network. We’re taking back that word for people who really mean it.
Our Team:
Sherwood Guernsey, President and Treasurer
Lee Harrison, Vice President and Writer
Ben Hillman, Creative Director
Frank Farkas, member and activist
Sheila Irvin, member and activist, union member
Marietta Rapetti-Cawse, member and activist
Michael Wise, member and activist, chair of Berkshire Democratic Brigades
Rural Freedom Network is a federally registered political action committee.
Paid for by RFN PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.