States where suburbs are more Republican than rural areas

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

Now this is interesting.

New Hampshire https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/new-hampshire/senate
West Virginia https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/west-virginia
North Carolina https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/north-carolina/president
South Carolina https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/south-carolina/president
Arizona https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/arizona/president
California https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/california
Montana https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/montana
Probably Massachusetts

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

Probably Alaska

Hawaii wouldn't technically have suburbs, but I would say Hawaii and Alaska are the only states where urban areas are more Republican than non-urban areas.

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

Seems this broader question comes up every month or so. Last year, I used muon's UCC delineations to calculate the lean of "metro" and "rural" classifications for each state for the past 2 presidential elections: by and large, the "metro" area is a combination of urban and suburban counties, while the "rural" area is obviously rural counties.

2012-16 Polarization Between Metro & Rural Counties (MAPS & DATA)

You'll find loads of maps and spreadsheet data with results from the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the above link, including hypothetical EC outcomes, polarization margins, and swings.

In all, there are 7 states where the metro county clusters are more Republican than the rural county clusters:

State (Pct Pt Diff; Margin)

• Alaska (? pts)
• Arizona (2 pts)
• Hawaii (10 pts)
• Massachusetts (18 pts)
• Mississippi (2 pts)
• New Hampshire (8 pts)
• South Carolina (12 pts)

I know this isn't directly the same thing as is being asked (presumably you're wanting to exclude urban from suburban when comparing to rural areas), but this is the baseline. There are likely several more when excluding the urban centers.

The reason I looked to exit polls is that there are rural areas even in "urban" counties. What constitutes urban/rural (and especially suburban) is very subjective though.

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

I'm surprised only one person mentioned Wisconsin. The Milwaukee suburbs are still heavily R, and might vote more R in the 2022 midterms IF Trump isn't president anymore.

In 2012 with Trump not on the ballot, the rural areas still came out slightly more Republican than the suburbs. The Madison suburbs bring down Republican margins.

http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/WI/president/

Also, Minnesota was a classic suburban Republican/rural Democrat state until very recently.