The Rural-Urban Continuum and the 2020 U. S. Presidential Election

Kenneth M. Johnson; Dante J. Scala

doi:10.1515/for-2022-2057

Article

The Rural-Urban Continuum and the 2020 U. S. Presidential Election

Kenneth M. Johnson and Dante J. Scala

Published/Copyright: June 15, 2022

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal The Forum Volume 20 Issue 2

Abstract

The question, “What is rural?”, has become increasingly salient to scholars of American politics over the past decade, especially after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. While social and political tensions between urban and rural residents of the United States are now widely recognized, rural cannot simply be defined as the antithesis of urban. Using survey data and voting returns from the 2020 election, we illustrate how urban-rural differences are best understood not as a dichotomy, but as a continuum. Large metropolitan core counties comprise one pole of this continuum: their residents are most likely to vote Democratic, and to express liberal attitudes on a variety of topics. At the other pole are counties far from urban areas with no towns, where conservative attitudes are widespread and Republican majorities are substantial. Between the two poles lie a continuum of counties with widely varying positions along the liberal-conservative dimension and voting records to match. We find this urban-rural continuum provides considerable analytical utility even in a multivariate spatial regression model that incorporates numerous other important demographic, economic, and social variables. Our analytical framework takes a step beyond the bipolarity that typically characterizes the discussion of urban and rural America.

Keywords: urban America; suburban America; rural America; urban-rural continuum; regional voting; presidential elections

Corresponding author: Dante J. Scala, Department of Political Science, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA, E-mail: Dante.Scala@unh.edu

References

Abrajano, M., and C. Burnett. 2012. “Polls and Elections: Do Blacks and Whites See Obama through Race-Tinted Glasses? A Comparison of Obama’s and Clinton’s Approval Ratings.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 42 (2): 363–75.10.1111/j.1741-5705.2012.03970.xSearch in Google Scholar

Anselin, L. 2002. “Under the Hood: Issues in the Specification and Interpretation of Spatial Regression Models.” Agricultural Economics 27: 247–67.10.1111/j.1574-0862.2002.tb00120.xSearch in Google Scholar

Anselin, L. 2005. Exploring spatial data with GeoDa. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Spatial Analysis Lab, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois.Search in Google Scholar

Badger, E., Q. Bui, and J. Katz. 2018. “The Suburbs Are Changing. But Not in All the Ways Liberals Hope.” The New York Times, 26 Nov. 2018. NYTimes.com. Also available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/upshot/suburbs-changing-midterms-democrats-hopes.html.Search in Google Scholar

Billingham, C. M., and S. M. D. Kimelberg. 2018. “Identifying the Urban: Resident Perceptions of Community Character and Local Institutions in Eight Metropolitan Areas.” City & Community 17 (3): 858–82, https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12319.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, T., S. Mettler, and S. Puzzi. 2021. “When Rural and Urban Become ‘Us’ versus ‘Them:’ How a Growing Divide Is Reshaping American Politics.” The Forum 19 (3): 365–93.10.1515/for-2021-2029Search in Google Scholar

Brownstein, R. 2021. “The Most Complete Picture Yet of America’s Changing Electorate.” The Atlantic. Also available at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/2020-voter-demographics/619337/.Search in Google Scholar

Campbell, D., J. Green, and G. Layman. 2011. “The Party Faithful: Partisan Images, Candidate Religion, and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (1): 42–58.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00474.xSearch in Google Scholar

Crabtree, J. 2016. “A Different Path for Rural America.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 75 (3): 605. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12150.Search in Google Scholar

Cramer, K. J. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226349251.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Economic Research Service. 2019. “ERS County Typology Codes, 2015 Edition.” Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Also available at: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-typology-codes/ (accessed June 28, 2020).Search in Google Scholar

Enke, B. 2020. “Moral Values and Voting.” Journal of Political Economy 128: 3679–729, doi:https://doi.org/10.1086/708857.Search in Google Scholar

Finke, R, and C Scheitle. 2005. “Accounting for the Uncounted: Computing Correctives for the 2000 RCMS Data.” Review of Religious Research 47 (1): 5–22.10.2307/4148278Search in Google Scholar

Frasure-Yokley, L., and B. Wilcox-Archuleta. 2019. “Geographic Identity and Attitudes toward Undocumented Immigrants.” Political Research Quarterly 72 (4): 944–59, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919843349.Search in Google Scholar

Gebeloff, R. 2019. “The Border between Red and Blue America.” The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2019. NYTimes.com. Also available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/upshot/suburbs-demographics-red-blue.html.Search in Google Scholar

Gimpel, J., N. Lovin, B. Moy, and A. Reeves. 2020. “The Urban-Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior.” Political Behavior 42: 1343–68, doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09601-w.Search in Google Scholar

Hopkins, D. A. 2019. “Opinion | The Democrats Don’t Have the Suburbs Sewn Up Yet.” The New York Times, 22 Sept. 2019. NYTimes.com. Also available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/opinion/democrats-suburbs.html.Search in Google Scholar

Jacobs, N. F., and B. Kal Munis. 2019. “Place-Based Imagery and Voter Evaluations: Experimental Evidence on the Politics of Place.” Political Research Quarterly 72 (2): 263–77, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918781035.Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, K. M., and D. J. Scala. 2021. “The Rural-Urban Continuum of Polarization: Understanding the Geography of the 2018 Midterms.” The Forum 18 (4): 607–26.10.1515/for-2020-2102Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, K. M., and D. T. Lichter. 2020. “Metropolitan Reclassification and the Urbanization of Rural America.” Demography 57 (5): 1929–50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00912-5.Search in Google Scholar

Kaufman, C. N. 2019. “Rural Political Participation in the United States: Alienation or Action?” Rural Society 28 (2): 127–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2019.1645429.Search in Google Scholar

Krause, N., D. Brossard, D. Scheufele, M. Xenos, and K. Franke. 2019. “Trends—Americans’ Trust in Science and Scientists.” Public Opinion Quarterly 83 (4): 817–36, doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfz041.Search in Google Scholar

Lay, J. C. 2017. “She Was Born in a Small Town: The Advantages and Disadvantages in Political Knowledge and Efficacy for Rural Girls.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 38 (3): 318–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477x.2016.1219590.Search in Google Scholar

Lichter, D., D. Parisi, and M. Taquino. 2018. “White Integration or Segregation? The Racial and Ethnic Transformation of Rural and Small Town America.” City & Community 17 (3): 702–19, doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12314.Search in Google Scholar

Lichter, D. T., and J. P. Ziliak. 2017. “The Rural-Urban Interface: New Patterns of Spatial Interdependence and Inequality in America.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672 (1): 6–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716217714180.Search in Google Scholar

McDaniel, E., and C. Ellison. 2008. “God’s Party? Race, Religion, and Partisanship over Time.” Political Research Quarterly 61 (2): 180–91.10.1177/1065912908314197Search in Google Scholar

Monnat, S. M., and D. L. Brown. 2017. “More Than a Rural Revolt: Landscapes of Despair and the 2016 Presidential Election.” Journal of Rural Studies 55: 227–36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.010.Search in Google Scholar

Morin, J. L., Y. M. Mejía, and G. R. Sanchez. 2020. “Is the Bridge Broken? Increasing Ethnic Attachments and Declining Party Influence among Latino Voters.” Political Research Quarterly 74 (1): 182–98.https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919888577.Search in Google Scholar

Munis, B. K. 2020. “Us over Here versus Them over There…Literally: Measuring Place Resentment in American Politics.” Political Behavior 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09641-2.Search in Google Scholar

Nemerever, Z. 2021. “Measuring the Rural Continuum in Political Science.” Political Analysis 29: 267–86, https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2020.47.Search in Google Scholar

Office of Management and Budget. 2013. “Revised Delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Combined Statistical Areas, and Guidance on Uses of the Delineations of These Areas 2010 standards for delineating metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas.” OMB Bulletin 13-10. Also available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/bulletins/2013/b13-01.pdf (accessed June 28, 2020).Search in Google Scholar

Rozell, M., and C. Wilcox, eds. 2018. God at the Grassroots, 2016: The Christian Right in American Politics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar

Sanchez, G. R., and B. Gomez-Aguinaga. 2017. “Latino Rejection of the Trump Campaign.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 42 (2): 165–81.10.1525/azt.2017.42.2.165Search in Google Scholar

Scala, D. J., K. M. Johnson, and L. T. Rogers. 2015. “Red Rural, Blue Rural? Presidential Voting Patterns in a Changing Rural America.” Political Geography 48: 108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.02.003.Search in Google Scholar

Scala, D. J., and K. M. Johnson. 2017. “Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000–2016.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672 (1): 162–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716217712696.Search in Google Scholar

Sides, J. 2017. “Race, Religion, and Immigration in 2016: How the Debate over American Identity Shaped the Election and What It Means for a Trump Presidency.” Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. Also available at https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/race-religion-immigration-2016.Search in Google Scholar

Stedman, R. C., and T. A. Heberlein. 2001. “Hunting and Rural Socialization: Contingent Effects of the Rural Setting on Hunting Participation.” Rural Sociology 66 (4): 599–617, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2001.tb00086.x.Search in Google Scholar

Sullivan, J., and M. Johnson. 2008. “Race Is On My Mind: Explaining Black Voter’s Political Attraction to Barack Obama.” Race, Gender & Class 15 (3–4): 51–64.Search in Google Scholar

Tyson, A., and Maniam, S. 2016. “Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education.” Pew Research Center, November 9, 2016. Also available at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ (accessed June 3, 2022).Search in Google Scholar

Urbatsch, R. 2018. “Feminine-Sounding Names and Electoral Performance.” Electoral Studies 55: 54–61, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.06.004.Search in Google Scholar

Valente, R., B. Berry, and A. Okulicz-Kozaryn. 2020. “An Intensifying Urban–Rural Schism in U.S. Women’s Preference for Governmental Solutions to Social Problems.” The Professional Geographer 72: 348–59, doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2020.1744168.Search in Google Scholar

Weber, B., J. Fannin, S. Cordes, and T. Johnson. 2017. “Upward Mobility of Low-Income Youth in Metropolitan, Micropolitan, and Rural America.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672 (1): 103–22, doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716217713477.Search in Google Scholar

Whitehead, A., S. Perry, and J. Baker. 2018. “Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Sociology of Religion 79 (2): 147–71.10.1093/socrel/srx070Search in Google Scholar

Wilkinson, W. 2019. “The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash.” Niskanen Center. https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-density-divide-urbanization-polarization-and-populist-backlash/ (accessed June 3, 2022).Search in Google Scholar

Wong, J. 2018. “The Evangelical Vote and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 3 (1): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2017.32.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2022-06-15

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2022-2057

Keywords for this article

urban America; suburban America; rural America; urban-rural continuum; regional voting; presidential elections