Cory Haala presents When Democrats Won the Heartland with Michael Lansing

In the 1980s, the Midwestern economic collapse caused by the farm crisis and deindustrialization inspired the region's liberal politicians to call on progressive populist traditions to rebuild local, state, and national Democratic parties. Cory Haala looks at the Midwest's central role in asserting an updated populism wielded by grassroots activists, politicians, and a wide-ranging coalition of voters to counter Reagan-era conservativism.

This left-oriented movement resurrected the imagery and policies of twentieth-century radical parties like the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and Robert La Follette's Wisconsin Idea. Delving into progressive populist ideas and tactics, Haala illuminates the work of the activists and politicians who led protests, founded a congressional caucus, and backed presidential campaigns that sought to advance their cause. Haala's account moves from Iron Range union halls to Iowa farmhouses to South Dakota reservations to revise views of Democratic Party history, the Midwest's political culture, and populism's role in US politics.

A counter to established political narratives, When Democrats Won the Heartland takes readers into the history of an unexpected political moment.

Cory Haala: I am an Assistant Professor of History and the Museum Studies Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I have a PhD and MA in American History from Marquette University (2020, 2015) and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Northwestern University (2012).

My first book, When Democrats Won the Heartland: Progressive Populism in the Age of Reagan, 1978-1992 (University of Illinois Press, May 2026), explains how progressive activists rebuilt the Democratic Party, specifically in the Upper Midwest, in response to the Reagan Revolution. Combining the records of grassroots activist groups with state- and national-level Democratic parties and figures from across the Midwest and U.S., I focus on the reorganization of Midwestern Democratic parties around the principles of what leading figures like Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, and others called “progressive populism.” Through newspapers, correspondence, and internal memos, I trace how this was driven by grassroots groups who intentionally used the language of Midwestern progressive organizations like the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, North Dakota Nonpartisan League, and Wisconsin Progressive Party to revive farm-labor, rural-urban working-class solidarity.

I am the author of the chapters “Replanting the Grassroots: The South Dakota Democratic Party from McGovern to Daschle, 1980-1986” in The Plains Political Tradition, vol. 3 (South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2018); “‘There exists a conservative veneer’: Terry Branstad, Chuck Grassley, and the Conservative Takeover of the Iowa Republican Party” in The Conservative Heartland: A Political History of the Postwar American Midwest (University Press of Kansas, 2020); and “‘Why We Must Save the Family Farm’: Midwestern Liberalism and Progressive Farm Policy, 1985-1996” in The Liberal Heartland: A Political History of the Postwar American Midwest (University Press of Kansas, 2025). I have also written an encyclopedia entry for MNopedia.org on the DFL Feminist Caucus and have articles in progress on a series of anti-NAFTA border blockades in the 1980s and 1990s and Paul Wellstone and the 33% Campaign, a progressive voter-registration initiative in Minnesota. I also serve as Secretary of the Midwestern History Association.

Michael J. Lansing was born and raised in the Twin Cities. A historian of the modern United States, his research focuses on the North American West and Midwest. He has received fellowships from the Newberry Library, Science History Institute, and Minnesota Historical Society as well as awards from the Western History Association, the Midwestern History Association, the Montana Historical Society, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Utah State Historical Society.

He is currently working on two books. A Police State: Politics and Public Safety in Minneapolis, 1945-2020 explores the rise of and resistance to police power in that city. Enriched: Industrial Carbohydrates and the Rise of Nutrition Capitalism is a history of factory-processed grains and the propagation of a political economy that demarcates the way we understand, make, and eat food. Both are under contract with the University of Chicago Press.

His publications include Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015), the co-edited Wallace Stegner’s Unsettled Country: Ruin, Realism, and Possibility in the American West (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), and the co-authored The American West: A Concise History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). His articles have appeared in the Western Historical Quarterly, Environmental History, the Journal of Historical Geography, the Middle West Review, the Utah Historical Quarterly, Minnesota History, and Ethics, Place, and Environment.

At Augsburg, he teaches introductory courses in U.S. history, as well as classes on the North American West, U.S. environmental history, history of capitalism, and public history. He is also a participating faculty member in the Environmental Studies program. Before arriving at Augsburg in 2005, he taught at Utah State University and the State University of New York at Buffalo and served as visiting assistant editor at the Western Historical Quarterly.

An active public historian, his work includes an oral history project with the Minnesota chapter of the Sierra Club, a congregational history, co-founding the Historyapolis Project, two years on the Legacy Strategic Agenda Collaborative (co-sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society and the Minnesota Association of Local History Museums), Purple Places: A Digital History Tour of Prince’s Minneapolis, and co-founding Overpoliced and Underprotected in MSP. His reflections on history and current events have appeared in MinnPost, Jacobin, and the Washington Post.

The son of a public school teacher, Michael is committed to improving history pedagogies. He spent two years on the staff of the National History Day in Minnesota program (1999-2001) and served as the academic lead on a Teaching American History grant that served educators in northern Minnesota (2008-2011). He collaborated with K-5 teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin (MN) School District to expand the use of inquiry-based approaches in social studies classrooms (2010-2013). In a similar vein, he participated in the American Historical Association’s Tuning Project—a national effort to identify and frame common goals for post-secondary history education (2012-2014). He currently serves as historical advisor to Project Edge, Broward County (FL) Public Schools and National Council For History Education (2023-) and as Augsburg’s content advisor for secondary social studies education majors (2012-).

Michael is a member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, the American Society for Environmental History, the National Council on Public History, the Coalition for Western Women’s History, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the American Association of University Professors.

Michael is a member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, the American Society for Environmental History, the National Council on Public History, the Coalition for Western Women’s History, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the American Association of University Professors.

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