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In their new book, The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America, Colby College political scientists Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea set out to describe what differentiates the politics of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan places. Drawing on the largest survey ever conducted with the specific aim of understanding rural voters, they seek to explain the recent rightward shift of the American countryside.
So what makes rural voters different? Jacobs and Shea found that four sensibilities separate the rural populace from the rest of the electorate. These are 1) an “overwhelming sense that their ways of life are discounted, mis-portrayed, and dismissed;” 2) an individualistic belief in hard work and its ability to outweigh the “discrimination faced by racial and ethnic minorities;” 3) a deep sense of “economic anxiety, which translates into a collective grievance toward government, experts, and outsiders;” and 4) a “heightened sense of civic pride.” ~ Olivia Weeks
