Rural And Small-Town Voters: Biden’s Economic Record

The Rural Voter Institute’s 2023 research (conducted summer of 2023) examined perceptions around three potential factors in the 2024 election: Trump’s mishandling of classified information, Biden’s economic record, and the public policy issue of crime and safety – a much hyped issue in the most recent mid-term election.

Topline findings:

  • Economic concerns were prominent amongst focus group participants. Panelists referenced their own experience and economic difficulties and challenges with inflation and rising grocery prices. A reasonable association could be made to suggest that inflation is exacerbating pre-existing economic angst and providing a new way to voice a long-standing problem in rural communities.

  • Economic anxiety in rural and small-town communities is real, based on a recent report that showed rural families, on average, earn 25 percent less than urban Americans, rural communities and small businesses have less access to capital and financial services, rural jobs are concentrated in lower-growth industries, and at the time of the study rural employment had not yet returned to pre-great-recession levels (Heinrich & Staff, 2018).

  • Rural America saw a net decline of population from 2010-2016 and an outward migration of young people. In the categories of population decline, college attainment, poverty, teen births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, and labor-force participation, rural America ranked worst amongst all 4 groupings. In years past, America’s inner cities rated worst in those categories. (Adamy & Overberg, 2017).

  • Panelists’ disinclination to believe the positive aspects of Biden’s economic record posed

    a vulnerability for Biden. When factual positives and rhetoric about Biden’s economic record were introduced, rural and small-town respondents rejected the positive information as fake news or false information, yielding a tepid response even with Trump-Biden voters.

For further findings and recommendations, download our report below.

Megan Tran