Mayor Primitivo Cedeño is in his office by sunrise these days, organizing deliveries of subsidized chicken, rice and even refrigerators to prospective voters in this town of 20,000 ahead of Sunday’s congressional elections. The warehouses Mr. Cedeño runs are bulging with household products and food being given away to voters in a swath of rural Venezuela that is vital to President Nicolás Maduro’s plan to maintain political control of the country. The region, known as the Midwestern Plains, is to the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV, what red states like Kansas are to the Republican Party. Mr. Cedeño admits that he is going to need all the help he can get if residents in his district are to prove polls wrong and vote for the PSUV. The party has become deeply unpopular as the government struggles to contain what the International Monetary Fund says […]