A year ago, rural America voted two-to-one to put Donald Trump in the White House. Rural Virginians are certain to vote heavily for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in today’s election in the Old Dominion, and “the margin … may affect the statewide result,” says the Daily Yonder in previewing an election that will be interpreted as a harbinger of the 2018 midterm elections nationwide.
The potential role of rural Virginia as the deciding factor in the statewide election flies in the face of conventional wisdom, “which holds that Virginia is turning blue because Democratic-voting urban areas in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads have grown faster than rural areas,” writes Mason Adams for the Yonder. Neither Gillespie nor Democratic nominee Ralph Northam did well in rural Virginia during the primary election. Both have targeted the state’s cities and suburbs during the fall campaign.
“Yet if the race is close, rural voters could indeed make the difference,” says the Yonder. “The relative impact of rural voters also will depend on the turnout in urban areas.” Republicans dominate rural Virginia, just as they are the majority party in rural counties in many other states. In the 2016 presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 5 percentage points in Virginia. The analytical site FiveThirtyEight says Northam currently leads Gillespie 46 to 43 percent, based on its 10-poll rolling average.