Perhaps more than ever before, the most important trends in today’s American politics are geographic. The divide between rural and urban voters seems greater than ever before. And those living on either side of that division seem to have little understanding or empathy for their fellow Americans.
This book by Colby College government professors Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea looks at the rural side of this divide and questions who so many rural voters support a political candidate tarnished with scandals, shackled with criminal indictments, disgraced by two impeachments, and stained by the January 6 insurgency. At any other time in American history, supporting such a candidate would be unthinkable; but these are not normal times.
Based largely on a Rural Voter Survey combining the largest-ever historical data set on voting patterns in the United States going back to 1800 with over 10,000 survey-interviews with both rural voters and non-rural residents, Jacobs and Shea expose grievances among rural Americans that explain their voting patterns.
“It is not because rural communities are predominantly white. It is not just because they are more conservative, or naturally disposed to distrust the government or dislike immigrants. Rural Americans are different because they see themselves as different. Fewer things matter more for the average rural voter than the fact that they live in a rural community. And, increasingly, ruralness matters more and more each election year,” they conclude.
Place matters, now more than ever. And any politician hoping to make inroads into rural areas of America should study this volume and apply its lessons