The split in Republican and Democratic support in U.S. cities versus rural America widened as Donald Trump won the presidency, says the Daily Yonder. Trump garnered 66 percent of the vote in rural counties, up by five points from fellow Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, while Democrat Hillary Clinton got a much smaller share of the rural vote, 29 percent, than President Obama’s 38 percent in his 2012 re-election.
“From a geographic standpoint, the Trump-Clinton contest was more polarizing than Romney-Obama, with bigger gaps separating the most urban from the most rural locations,” said James Gimpel, University of Maryland political scientist. Trump won a smaller share of the urban vote than Romney did. Clinton won a majority of the urban vote, but did not mobilize the Democratic base as well as Obama.
Trump’s 2-to-1 advantage in rural America, home to roughly one-fifth of the U.S. population, was key to his victory. “Donald Trump won the presidency with a surge of votes from rural counties, small towns, and medium sized cities,” said the Yonder.