Moreno listens to Holmes County leaders in roundtable discussion

Holmes County leaders used a roundtable with U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno to put hard numbers on the table: 31.5% of residents under 65 are uninsured, and 63.5% of households have a broadband subscription. For a county where 79.0% of housing units are owner-occupied and livestock, poultry, and products make up 84% of farm sales, those figures shape the daily conversation about work, health care, and staying connected.

Moreno’s visit was framed as a listening session, not a campaign stop. Dozens of local leaders gathered for a discussion that stayed focused on thoughts, hopes, challenges and needs rather than partisan speeches, giving Holmes County officials a direct line to a senator who can carry local concerns into federal agencies and funding fights. That kind of access does not fix a road, close a coverage gap or extend broadband by itself, but it can help determine whether those problems get attention in Washington.

The county’s needs are not abstract. Holmes County had 44,223 residents in the 2020 Census and is estimated at 44,970 as of July 1, 2025, a size that makes it large enough to face serious infrastructure and service demands while still relying heavily on local relationships. Recent local coverage has repeatedly turned to broadband gaps, school concerns, flooding, roadwork and other countywide issues, the same pressures that tend to surface when leaders from a rural county sit down with a federal officeholder.

That is where a senator can matter. Moreno cannot replace county government or state agencies, but he can ask federal departments to pay attention, push for rural priorities in legislation and help local leaders make the case for grants, regulations and program access that affect farms, small businesses, health care providers and households trying to get online. In a county where agriculture remains heavily livestock-based and many residents still face gaps in insurance and internet access, those channels can shape whether local plans move forward or stall.

The roundtable’s value, then, lies less in the optics of a visit than in whether it turns into follow-up. Holmes County leaders had the chance to put their priorities in front of Moreno in one room, and the issues they raised matched the county’s biggest pressure points. For residents tracking whether Washington will notice Holmes County, the real test will be whether the conversation leads to action on broadband, health care, roads, schools and the farm economy.