Republicans have not made up ground they lost among rural voters in the 2006 election, according to a poll commissioned by the Center for Rural Strategies. The study indicates that negative views about the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, and the economy are eroding the Republican party's rural base.
But rural voters remain more conservative than the nation as a whole, creating an opportunity for Republicans to make up their losses, according to the poll of 804 rural likely voters conducted this month.
Among the findings of the Rural Strategies poll are:
* Rural voters deliver a narrow plurality to a generic Democratic candidate for President: 46 - 43 percent. In contrast, President Bush won the rural vote in 2004 by 19 points.
* Voters are not inspired by any candidate for president, including Fred Thompson, who draws a modest 22 percent favorable, 18 percent unfavorable score among the 52 percent who are familiar with him.
* At the Congressional level, voters prefer Democrats in named trial heats 46 - 44 percent.
* Iraq poses challenges for both parties. While a narrow majority opposes the war, nearly 60 percent are close to someone serving or who has served in the fighting. This is not a "television war" for rural families.
* President Bush's job approval numbers have dropped from 54 percent approve, 43 percent disapprove just prior to the 2004 election to 44 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove currently.
* Nonetheless, rural America remains a deeply conservative place (50 percent conservative in self-ascribed terms) and there is little evidence of shifting ideologies in this survey.
The rural vote is critical in presidential and congressional elections because large Republican majorities among rural voters have helped overcome Democratic advantages in urban areas. With the rural advantage eroding for the GOP, both parties may look more carefully at the rural vote in the coming elections.
"The rural vote determines presidential elections," said Dee Davis, president of the nonpartisan Center for Rural Strategies, which sponsors the poll. "Democrats don’t win unless they make rural competitive, and Republicans don’t win without a large rural victory. So you’d think that would mean the candidates would have a spirited debate on the things that matter to rural Americans, but we haven’t heard it yet."
Republican poll adviser Bill Greener of Greener & Hook said the poll shows rural America is disenchanted with current leaders, not abandoning its preference for more conservative candidates.
"Rural voters clearly prefer GOP positions to Democratic ones," he said. "The problem is that at this point, there's just no one they trust to deliver on that promise."
Democratic pollster and poll adviser Anna Greenberg, vice president of the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, said she sees opportunities for Democrats in the poll's findings.
"Democrats have a historic opportunity here," she said. "Rural America is as politically competitive as any region in the country right now. It is a battleground, but it's part of America that Republicans must win, and win decisively, if they are to compete a national level."
http://www.ruralstrategies.org/projects/tracker/2007/
