This article documents the diversity of political attitudes and voting patterns along the urban-rural continuum of the United States. We find that America’s rural and urban interface, in terms of political attitudes and voting patterns, is just beyond the outer edges of large urban areas and through the suburban counties of smaller metropolitan areas. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton performed well in densely populated areas on the urban side of the interface, but they faced increasingly difficult political climates and sharply diminished voter support on the rural side of the interface. The reduction in support for Clinton in 2016 in rural areas was particularly pronounced. Even after controlling for demographic, social, and economic factors (including geographic region, education, income, age, race, and religious affiliation) in a spatial regression, we find that a county’s position in the urban-rural continuum remained statistically significant in the estimation of voting patterns in presidential ...

Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000–2016:

More than a Rural Revolt: Landscapes of Despair and the 2016 Presidential Election.

The development of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines provides a clear path to bring the pandemic to an end. Vaccination rates, however, have been insufficient to prevent disease spread. A critical factor in so many people choosing not to be vaccinated is their political views. In this study, a path model is developed and tested to explore the impacts of political views on vaccination rates and COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 residents in U.S. counties. The data strongly supported the model. In counties with a high percentage of Republican voters, vaccination rates were significantly lower and COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 residents were much higher. Moving forward, it is critical to find ways to overcome political division and rebuild trust in science and health professionals. 

/pdf/vaccination-politics-and-covid-19-impacts-2ry1375s.pdf

Vaccination, politics and COVID-19 impacts

Research on US public concern about environmental issues finds ideology or political party are the most consistent background predictors. Party is commonly defined by three groups: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Here, using statewide New Hampshire survey data, we elaborate this approach to distinguish a fourth group: respondents who say they support the Tea Party movement. On 8 out of 12 science- or environment-related questions, Tea Party supporters differ significantly from non–Tea Party Republicans. Tea Party supporters are less likely than non–Tea Party Republicans to trust scientists for information about environmental issues, accept human evolution, believe either the physical reality or the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, or recognise trends in Arctic ice, glaciers, or CO2. Despite factual gaps, Tea Party supporters express greater confidence in their own understanding of climate change. Independents, on the other hand, differ less from non–Tea Party Republicans on ...

A four-party view of US environmental concern

Urban–rural differences in partisan political loyalty are as familiar in the United States as they are in other countries. In this paper, we examine Gallup survey data from the early-2000s through 2018 to understand the urban–rural fissure that has been so noticeable in recent elections. We consider the potential mechanisms of an urban–rural political divide. We suggest that urban and rural dwellers oppose each other because they reside in far apart locations without much interaction and support different political parties because population size structures opinion quite differently in small towns compared with large cities. In particular, we consider the extent to which the compositional characteristics (i.e., race, income, education, etc.) of the individuals living in these locales drives the divide. We find that sizable urban–rural differences persist even after accounting for an array of individual-level characteristics that typically distinguish them.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11109-020-09601-w.pdf

The Urban–Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior

Red rural, blue rural? Presidential voting patterns in a changing rural America

The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. By Katherine J. Cramer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

The authors examine whether early state polls, particularly New Hampshire, have been more accurate in predicting the eventual presidential nominees. The authors conclude that New Hampshire poll results have become better bellwethers and propose that the more informed nature of the state’s electorate may be a reason for the accuracy of the results.

/pdf/does-the-tail-wag-the-dog-early-presidential-nomination-5uwl020wl1.pdf

Dante J. Scala

Papers

Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000–2016:

Red rural, blue rural? Presidential voting patterns in a changing rural America

The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. By Katherine J. Cramer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Does the Tail Wag the Dog? Early Presidential Nomination Polling in New Hampshire and the U.S.

The Four Faces of the Republican Party