Growing support in rural areas for Republican presidential candidates is a long-term trend

Since the 1990s, increasing percentages of rural voters in the U.S. have supported Republican candidates for the presidency. Urban voters' support for Republicans seeking the White House has remained largely flat in that same time period.

Share of votes for the Republican presidential candidate in rural and urban counties, 1976-2024. Rural counties are nonmetropolitan and urban counties are metropolitan based on 2013 definitions. Excludes Alaska because it reports election results for election districts rather than counties.
Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: Tim Slack and Shannon Monnat with data from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential ElectionsGet the data Download imageCreated with Datawrapper