Rural Representation Gaps in the American States

• In Event: Race, Place, and Identity in State Politics and Policy

Abstract

Influential studies have demonstrated a troubling representation gap in American politics: elected officials are less responsive to the needs of racial and ethnic minorities, to the less affluent, and to sexual orientation minorities. Do geographic minorities also face a representation gap? Rural Americans are a numerical minority group facing considerable socioeconomic obstacles, but whose representation in state government has been largely unexamined. This project is the first to quantitatively evaluate how policy preferences between rural and non-rural
co-partisans vary and the extent to which state legislators represent rural constituents relative to their non-rural constituents. Using original data which pairs the preferences of constituents with state legislator roll call votes on state legislative bills pertaining to issues covered in the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I assess the quality of dyadic substantive representation between rural voters and their state legislators vis-`a-vis other politically marginalized groups, including race and ethnic minorities, low-income individuals, and women. Republican legislators are slightly more likely to represent the preferences of their rural constituents relative to their non-rural constituents. On the other hand, rural voters face a democratic deficit when being represented by Democratic legislators, and the rural representation gap is persistent across race, ethnic, education, and gender subgroups. The Democratic representation gap persists even under the most favorable conditions for representation: rural Democratic voters in rural districts represented by Democratic legislators. Although rural voters received disproportionate representation through malapportioned U.S. Senate districts, state legislatures are not the bastions of rural interests they were once thought to be.

Author

• Zoe Nemerever, Texas Tech University