Rural vs urban voting patterns

[Bismarck]

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In the US that's mostly not correct. With the exception of the Deep South, poor rural whites mostly vote democrat. Wealthy suburbs are much more republican than democrat in almost all parts of the country.

[ElectionsGuy]

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In the US that's mostly not correct. With the exception of the Deep South, poor rural whites mostly vote democrat. Wealthy suburbs are much more republican than democrat in almost all parts of the country.

While wealthy suburbs are more R than D with some exceptions (Bay area and DC suburbs being the most prominent exceptions), poor rural whites are indeed more R than D. Not more so than more well off rural whites, but still pretty Republican. The only exception is New England.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Republicans wouldn't win any elections if they only won rural voters.  That should be obvious.  They run up their margin in what this forum calls "exurbs," too, and they do a hell of a lot better in most urban suburbs than Dems do in a lot of rural areas ... "Urban vs. rural" is much, much too simplistic.

[Bismarck]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

[RFayette]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

True.  Also, keep in mind Evangelicals of virtually all education levels (I suppose I'm not sure about PHD's) tend to vote Republican.  There are far too many simplifications along the lines of "The GOP is just uneducated rural white rednecks," even though it certainly has a degree of truth to it.

[RINO Tom]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

True.  Also, keep in mind Evangelicals of virtually all education levels (I suppose I'm not sure aobut PHD's) tend to vote Republican.  There are far too many simplifications along the lines of "The GOP is just uneducated rural white rednecks," even though it certainly has a degree of truth to it.

I think what's annoying to many is that 1) it's still not that true at all, and 2) Democrats have been pushing that narrative for a LONG time, starting way back when it DEFINITELY wasn't true (2000 and earlier).

[RFayette]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

True.  Also, keep in mind Evangelicals of virtually all education levels (I suppose I'm not sure about PHD's) tend to vote Republican.  There are far too many simplifications along the lines of "The GOP is just uneducated rural white rednecks," even though it certainly has a degree of truth to it.

I think what's annoying to many is that 1) it's still not that true at all, and 2) Democrats have been pushing that narrative for a LONG time, starting way back when it DEFINITELY wasn't true (2000 and earlier).

Good point.  For sure, before 2000, that narrative was quite silly, when states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were backing Clinton.  Now, it still is pretty silly because it ignores the nuances of different types of suburbs (exurbs vs inner suburbs) as well as the surprising conservatism of the urban white vote south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Nonetheless, it's not hard to see how the stereotype emerged.  The media and major academic institutions have been liberal for a long time.  Furthermore, a lot of "latte liberal" upscale areas have also voted Democratic for quite some time (Upper West Side, Seattle, Bay Area, etc.), which exert a disproportional influence on our culture.  A lot of folks in those spots may have noticed less-educated, more working-class, and more Republican rural folks miles away and extrapolated into unreasonable conclusions that hold up less in other parts of the country (for instance, income is strongly correlated with Republican voting in Texas, but in media-heavy areas like Virginia and a lot of the left coast, this hasn't been the case).

The other thing is that the "uneducated" stereotype seems to only really apply among whites.  In more "liberal" areas, the perception is that even among white males, the only conservatives are those who are without a college degree and from a rural area or are Evangelical, or both.  Among older white males, the lean is GOP even at high education levels.

[TJ in Oregon]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

True.  Also, keep in mind Evangelicals of virtually all education levels (I suppose I'm not sure about PHD's) tend to vote Republican.  There are far too many simplifications along the lines of "The GOP is just uneducated rural white rednecks," even though it certainly has a degree of truth to it.

I suspect from experience the Evangelicals who go for PhDs still vote Republican but that there are simply very few of them. From the few I do know, I gather the winds are changing somewhat, but there has definitely been historical disdain for higher education in Evangelical circles. It's almost like a little bit of William of Occam's views on faith and reason have lived on in Evangelical thought and which discourage the use of reason. Indeed, I wonder if part of academia's liberalism is because of Evangelicals dislike of it.

[Intell]

I don't understand why democrats are laughing at poor, rural whites and demeaning them, should't they want poor, even un-educated people to make up an electorate centerd around helping those less fortunate then ourselves.

[Asian Nazi]

I don't understand why democrats are laughing at poor, rural whites and demeaning them, should't they want poor, even un-educated people to make up an electorate centerd around helping those less fortunate then ourselves.

I think the "the only people who disagree with my objectively correct worldview are stupid and/or bigots and if they were to get educated they would obviously support my worldview" narrative is compelling for reasons which should be clear.

[Adam Griffin]

I don't understand why democrats are laughing at poor, rural whites and demeaning them, should't they want poor, even un-educated people to make up an electorate centerd around helping those less fortunate then ourselves.

Let's not pretend that this is some sort of one-sided concept here where Democrats suddenly started demeaning these people. The lack of empathy in the Democratic Party for poor and working-class whites today despite "worker's rights" and "economic equality" is arising for the same reason that there's a lack of empathy in the Republican Party for blacks despite "freedom" and "civil rights": said groups have turned their backs on the parties. There are increasingly fewer people who comprise this group in the Democratic Party and the frustration of that is being channeled into this sentiment.

Poor and working-class whites have been abandoning the party for decades, weakening their own influence within it and increasingly affecting their own quality of life in the country as a whole. Even before the truly hot-button social issues of present-day, these individuals were finding excuses as to why "I didn't leave the party: it left me". No...you literally left it, and with every defection comes a party that by definition will continue to diverge from your ideology. The amount of hostility and humor at the expense of these people is inversely proportional to their numbers within the party. As more and more of them leave, less of their worldview is represented at the same time that more resentment and frustration is generated among the remaining groups as a result of such decisions - which hurt the individuals leaving and to a lesser degree, everyone else as a result.

A lot of Democrats are simply reaching the point of exasperation where "if these idiots want to keep harming themselves (and us in the process) - since we can't do anything about it - we might as well get some laughing out of their suffering. They've earned it". I personally come from a poor white Appalachian upbringing, and I have no sympathy for the elements of the white working class that are too feeble-minded to figure out that voting for a rich man's party because "muh abortion" or whatever is economic suicide for them. I'm sure that if it were politically-feasible to grab back all of the lost pieces of the coalition tomorrow by selling a Donald Trump-esque message, the party apparatus would have no problem doing so: after all, they're more reliable voters than most current Democratic constituencies.

The issue is that it won't work and doesn't work. A majority of these people have developed an irrational hatred of the Democratic Party that no amount of logic, outreach, pandering or genuine effort is going to breach. It's at the point that Republicans can promote a plethora of Democratic ideas and they'll gobble them up (see above; Trump) while Democrats can act just like Republicans and make no inward roads whatsoever (see every Deep South Democrat wiped out in the past 10 years). They now possess a blind hatred of the party label itself which is irrational and irreversible. 

[kansasdemocrat]

Adam Griffin is 100% right on. Kudos on getting it right!

[DC Al Fine]

The fact that Griff can dismiss Evangelical/Catholic concern about abortion as simply "muh abortion" shows how little the left understands their concerns. I mean seriously, in our eyes there are plenty of politicians on the left and posters on Atlas running around saying how proud they are that killing. Can you see, how that might ever so slightly affect our votes?

[Adam Griffin]

The fact that Griff can dismiss Evangelical/Catholic concern about abortion as simply "muh abortion" shows how little the left understands their concerns. I mean seriously, in our eyes there are plenty of politicians on the left and posters on Atlas running around saying how proud they are that killing. Can you see, how that might ever so slightly affect our votes?

No, I do understand it - I've been exposed to the evangelical side of it my whole life in cultural proportions most on here can't understand - and that is precisely why I reject the premise. There's way too much hypocrisy about the value of life among American evangelicals for me to take them seriously. Yes, even for the pious, consistency is required in the presence of truth.

What I understand even better, however, are the political and partisan factors. A key theme running through my post was that these groups began to exit the party in large numbers before large numbers of the party were pro-choice, and that helped make the party largely pro-choice. There's a whole generation of voters who left the party over other reasons (largely initiating with the quasi-equal treatment of minorities) and who then later began citing concerns like abortion as reasons why they'd never vote Democratic - sorry, but for a good chunk of them, it's suspect behavior. They're grasping at straws for reasons why they no longer support Democrats (I'll get to that below). The party has been behind the practice for a long time; the voters, not so much. Still, plenty of people were able to reconcile it. Quite a few (evangelicals and Catholics) still do.

You should at least be grateful that I'm not one of those Democrats who think that evangelicals are too stupid to think for themselves; I merely think their priorities are stupid. As in, most Democrats say "Oh if only they'd understand - why do they vote against their own self-interests? If only they could be educated!", whereas I say, "No, those clearly are their own self-interests: they just have sh!tty priorities".

Yet my biggest point was neither of these elements, but the premise that these individuals have been infused with blind hatred for the party itself, which was done to create permanent obstruction that prohibits positive outcomes for the working and middle classes. The policies don't matter. They've been convinced underneath all of these currents that the party is the embodiment of evil, and all of the policy or ideological elements are - in reality - secondary at this point. The Democrats could vow to ban abortion, oppose gay marriage and enact a plethora of other desired policies that evangelicals want (that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion but are practically gospel in their circles at this point) and not a single one of these "values voters" would rejoin the fold.

"The issues" are masking a subconscious concept; they are now merely talking points and public "justifications". They've been slowly convinced to oppose their economic interests using one-dimensional strategies that after a certain point became so prevalent and deep-seated that no further input was necessary. The brand is forever damaged with this group - policies no longer matter. They'll repeat these issues-based talking points, sure, but every single one of these could be resolved amicably by the Democrats in their favor and they'd still find a reason to oppose the party.

So why care anymore?

[Badger]

Damn.

Just damn, Griff.

[RFayette]

If the Democratic Party brand is so irrevocably broken in the rural South, then why do Democrats still do well at the county level in states like Mississippi?  I think Griff is largely right with his analysis to some extent concerning blind hatred for the Dems, but I do find it odd that many of those folks still vote Democratic at some level, leading me to think that Democrats could revive in those parts at some point.

[Adam Griffin]

If the Democratic Party brand is so irrevocably broken in the rural South, then why do Democrats still do well at the county level in states like Mississippi?  I think Griff is largely right with his analysis to some extent concerning blind hatred for the Dems, but I do find it odd that many of those folks still vote Democratic at some level, leading me to think that Democrats could revive in those parts at some point.

The power of incumbency is a terribly mighty thing to behold. A lot of these office-holders have been in office for decades (keep in mind that for a variety of reasons, a lot of Deep South Dems in decades past would get elected to office at shockingly young ages); they're "good people" and everybody knows them. At the local level with regard to state parties, you're dealing with a "every man for himself" sort of situation with respect to political party organization and operation in the Deep South, which is seeded with far too many counties. These areas were never competitive, and the "breakthrough" or dominance at the state level for the Republican Party in many cases has only occurred in the past 10 years or so. Resources haven't flowed in here, and because time largely stands still, a compounding series of events prevents Republicans from doing well.

Think about it this way (putting it in quotes so it's condensed in size):

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What do you think is going to happen in that situation by default? The same thing that has always happened.

Though I will say (and there are literally hundreds of examples around the South), there have been and will come times where a series of factors line up perfectly: a GOP county party gets organized, outside assistance begins to come in to some degree, a slate of good candidates are recruited to run as Republicans, and the collective voter hive-mind suddenly snaps and realizes that the Dem primary doesn't have to be the general election. In almost every case where that series of factors has occurred, the Dems are almost or universally purged from local elected office within a matter of 2-4 years (excluding the ones who negotiate with the GOP to defect to save their hides).

[hopper]

I don't understand why democrats are laughing at poor, rural whites and demeaning them, should't they want poor, even un-educated people to make up an electorate centerd around helping those less fortunate then ourselves.

Let's not pretend that this is some sort of one-sided concept here where Democrats suddenly started demeaning these people. The lack of empathy in the Democratic Party for poor and working-class whites today despite "worker's rights" and "economic equality" is arising for the same reason that there's a lack of empathy in the Republican Party for blacks despite "freedom" and "civil rights": said groups have turned their backs on the parties. There are increasingly fewer people who comprise this group in the Democratic Party and the frustration of that is being channeled into this sentiment.

Poor and working-class whites have been abandoning the party for decades, weakening their own influence within it and increasingly affecting their own quality of life in the country as a whole. Even before the truly hot-button social issues of present-day, these individuals were finding excuses as to why "I didn't leave the party: it left me". No...you literally left it, and with every defection comes a party that by definition will continue to diverge from your ideology. The amount of hostility and humor at the expense of these people is inversely proportional to their numbers within the party. As more and more of them leave, less of their worldview is represented at the same time that more resentment and frustration is generated among the remaining groups as a result of such decisions - which hurt the individuals leaving and to a lesser degree, everyone else as a result.

A lot of Democrats are simply reaching the point of exasperation where "if these idiots want to keep harming themselves (and us in the process) - since we can't do anything about it - we might as well get some laughing out of their suffering. They've earned it". I personally come from a poor white Appalachian upbringing, and I have no sympathy for the elements of the white working class that are too feeble-minded to figure out that voting for a rich man's party because "muh abortion" or whatever is economic suicide for them. I'm sure that if it were politically-feasible to grab back all of the lost pieces of the coalition tomorrow by selling a Donald Trump-esque message, the party apparatus would have no problem doing so: after all, they're more reliable voters than most current Democratic constituencies.

The issue is that it won't work and doesn't work. A majority of these people have developed an irrational hatred of the Democratic Party that no amount of logic, outreach, pandering or genuine effort is going to breach. It's at the point that Republicans can promote a plethora of Democratic ideas and they'll gobble them up (see above; Trump) while Democrats can act just like Republicans and make no inward roads whatsoever (see every Deep South Democrat wiped out in the past 10 years). They now possess a blind hatred of the party label itself which is irrational and irreversible. 

Donald Trump running on Democrat Party idea's? He hasn't done that.

[hopper]

The fact that Griff can dismiss Evangelical/Catholic concern about abortion as simply "muh abortion" shows how little the left understands their concerns. I mean seriously, in our eyes there are plenty of politicians on the left and posters on Atlas running around saying how proud they are that killing. Can you see, how that might ever so slightly affect our votes?

No, I do understand it - I've been exposed to the evangelical side of it my whole life in cultural proportions most on here can't understand - and that is precisely why I reject the premise. There's way too much hypocrisy about the value of life among American evangelicals for me to take them seriously. Yes, even for the pious, consistency is required in the presence of truth.

What I understand even better, however, are the political and partisan factors. A key theme running through my post was that these groups began to exit the party in large numbers before large numbers of the party were pro-choice, and that helped make the party largely pro-choice. There's a whole generation of voters who left the party over other reasons (largely initiating with the quasi-equal treatment of minorities) and who then later began citing concerns like abortion as reasons why they'd never vote Democratic - sorry, but for a good chunk of them, it's suspect behavior. They're grasping at straws for reasons why they no longer support Democrats (I'll get to that below). The party has been behind the practice for a long time; the voters, not so much. Still, plenty of people were able to reconcile it. Quite a few (evangelicals and Catholics) still do.

You should at least be grateful that I'm not one of those Democrats who think that evangelicals are too stupid to think for themselves; I merely think their priorities are stupid. As in, most Democrats say "Oh if only they'd understand - why do they vote against their own self-interests? If only they could be educated!", whereas I say, "No, those clearly are their own self-interests: they just have sh!tty priorities".

Yet my biggest point was neither of these elements, but the premise that these individuals have been infused with blind hatred for the party itself, which was done to create permanent obstruction that prohibits positive outcomes for the working and middle classes. The policies don't matter. They've been convinced underneath all of these currents that the party is the embodiment of evil, and all of the policy or ideological elements are - in reality - secondary at this point. The Democrats could vow to ban abortion, oppose gay marriage and enact a plethora of other desired policies that evangelicals want (that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion but are practically gospel in their circles at this point) and not a single one of these "values voters" would rejoin the fold.

"The issues" are masking a subconscious concept; they are now merely talking points and public "justifications". They've been slowly convinced to oppose their economic interests using one-dimensional strategies that after a certain point became so prevalent and deep-seated that no further input was necessary. The brand is forever damaged with this group - policies no longer matter. They'll repeat these issues-based talking points, sure, but every single one of these could be resolved amicably by the Democrats in their favor and they'd still find a reason to oppose the party.

So why care anymore?

You do have a point in your post that the South was once Strong Democrat(even when Reagan was President in the 80's) but I think in the early 2000's Southerners started voting for Republicans on the Congressional Level and for the 2005-2010 period started voting majority Republican on the local level although South Carolina started voting majority Republican in 2002 for the state legislature. Virginia started voting a majority Republican in state legislatures for 1998. Dems in Virginia did rebound had a majority in the State Senate and took a Majority from 2008-2011 and in 2014 as well but the "The Virginia House Of Delegates" was still Republican Controlled for that time period.

[Adam Griffin]

Donald Trump running on Democrat Party idea's? He hasn't done that.

...That's sarcasm, right?

Protectionism, higher taxes on the wealthy, universal health care coverage at minimum, etc...

Other than the foul-mouthed racist and jingoist talk, he's a walking billboard in many cases for Democratic economic ideology. In fact, put him in the South 30 years ago and he'd fit right in.

[RINO Tom]

Donald Trump running on Democrat Party idea's? He hasn't done that.

...That's sarcasm, right?

Protectionism, higher taxes on the wealthy, universal health care coverage at minimum, etc...

Other than the foul-mouthed racist and jingoist talk, he's a walking billboard in many cases for Democratic economic ideology. In fact, put him in the South 30 years ago and he'd fit right in.

Which, unfortunately for many Republicans like me, is exactly why he's doing so well with the group that he's winning and exactly what is so alarming about his current polls status.

[hopper]

Donald Trump running on Democrat Party idea's? He hasn't done that.

...That's sarcasm, right?

Protectionism, higher taxes on the wealthy, universal health care coverage at minimum, etc...

Other than the foul-mouthed racist and jingoist talk, he's a walking billboard in many cases for Democratic economic ideology. In fact, put him in the South 30 years ago and he'd fit right in.

Protectionism-Yes he is against TPP because he thought China was in the deal. Rand Paul said "China is not in the deal".

Universal Healthcare-He was once for single payer I think but he is not for that anymore.

Higher Taxes On the Wealthy-Yes he is for a higher taxes on capital gains.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

In the US that's mostly not correct. With the exception of the Deep South, poor rural whites mostly vote democrat. Wealthy suburbs are much more republican than democrat in almost all parts of the country.

Before 2000, I always used to think of the Democrats as sort of an urban/rural coalition. The Republicans would only win when the suburbs carried it for them.

There used to be a lot of people who lived in urban areas who were sort of rural-oriented. They lived in the city, but they liked rural themes. They were probably Democratic back then, but are there really many folks like this remaining now? Those who lived in the cities have probably become more urban-themed. Plus, I think a lot of rural Democrats have simply moved to the cities. (Cities are growing faster than rural areas.)

[Mr. Illini]

Rockefeller GOP I solute you in your cause of disproving the democrats propaganda that the majority of republican voters are poor uneducated whites.

I'm not sure that Democrats say that, but instead Dems say that that group is the loudest and most likely to lead to the GOP's destruction.