The Urban-Rural divide is one of the most prevalent political divisions in America today. Rural counties are virtually guaranteed to go for Republicans, Urban counties will always go for Democrats, and so the real war is fought in suburban counties, which played a very large part in Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. But it wasn’t always this way.
Historically, America’s rural towns have been socially conservative, and economically moderate. This can be best illustrated in the 1988 Presidential election. During the 1980’s the midwest experienced a huge farm crisis due to the ban on Soviet grain initiated during the Reagan administration. Due to farmers’ poor economic outlook, they voted Democrat, despite not agreeing with most liberal social policies. In fact, Democratic Presidential nominee Micheal Dukakis was able to easily win Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and gave George Bush a run for his money in hugely conservative states like Kansas, Montana, and the Dakotas.
The 1988 election jump-started a long term realignment in which Democrats picked up support in rural midwestern and rust belt counties. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both won big in midwestern states, and Bush Jr was still not able to win the rust-belt despite his 2 victories. It seemed that Democrats were able to counteract their losses in other regions by winning in the midwest. That is, until 2016.
In 2016, Democrats were treating Hillary Clinton’s victory as almost guaranteed. Republicans, sensing they needed to change the tides, presented a different angle of attack. Clinton and other Democrats were painted as elitists who were out of touch with midwestern and rust belt values, which made voters conservative social tendencies a larger part of the electorate. Furthermore, the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, ran on a protectionist, America first campaign that resonated with voters in the region. This all culminated in Trump’s upset, which was largely based on rural counties. In the future, this rural-urban political divide will continue to grow, as Democrats focus more and more on the suburbs. Time can only tell if America’s rural areas will shift again.