Are Rural Attitudes Just Republican?

• In Event: Political Identity, Partisanship, and Preferences

Abstract

Are the interests of rural residents the same as Republican interests? Previous research demonstrates an urban-rural divide in issue attitudes whereby rural residents tend to adopt more conservative policy positions and urban residents tend to adopt more liberal ones in the US. In this paper, we investigate whether this notion holds true, or if rural residents are indeed their own unique constituency that carries interests different from what is traditionally “Republican”. We examine canonical issues that are widely discussed in the political discourse and leverage data from the 2020 American National Elections Studies to compare responses between rural and urban residents, Democrats and Republicans, and the interaction between these factors. In doing so, we identify a set of issues that are unique to the urban-rural cleavage that counter traditional conceptualizations of Republican versus Democratic political interests.

Authors

• Kristin Kay Lunz Trujillo, Boston College

• Jennifer Lin, Rollins College