New Rural Poll Results

Rural voters can decide the election. And rural voters are swing voters.

A shift among small city and rural voters has made a decisive impact on the very close presidential race. These groups shifted nine points to Kamala Harris compared to support for Joe Biden in March. Harris is now performing two points better than Biden did in the 2020 election in small cities and rural parts of these same states.

The new Rural Democracy Initiative poll of likely voters in battleground states finds a close race, and it also helps us to understand rural voters and how they plan to vote. The poll was conducted just after the Democratic Convention and before the first presidential debate and supplements a similar March 2024 rural voter poll.

Rural Viewpoints

• An overwhelming 77% of rural likely voters oppose abortion bans — identical to results in our March survey.
• For a plurality of rural voters (41%), the top concerns are the economy, jobs, and inflation — a figure closely aligned with the 38% of all voters in battleground states who share the same priority. Fourteen percent of rural voters named threats to democracy as their highest priority, followed by immigration (8%) and programs like Social Security and Medicare (7%).
• Most rural voters, in March and now, support growing our economy by prioritizing lowering costs and raising incomes for working people, rather than tax cuts for the rich and corporate deregulation. Women (59%), young people (62%), and Black voters (66%) strongly prefer this economic approach.

Electoral Takeaways

• In March, Trump held a 26-point lead among registered rural voters. Harris has cut Trump’s lead to 18 points among rural likely voters.
• This swing among rural voters has been driven by rural women, voters of color (including an overwhelming majority of Black voters), young voters (18-29), and voters in small cities and towns. Harris is statistically tied with Trump among rural younger voters, trails him by eight points among rural women, and leads among rural voters of color.
• 73% of rural Democrats report feeling “more enthusiastic” than usual about voting, compared to 63% of Republicans.
• There are clear differences between rural voters who live in remote areas versus those who live in small cities and towns (under 50,000). Harris’ margin among voters in these small cities is much closer (-11 points) compared to voters in more remote areas (-23 points).

About the Poll

From August 28 to September 8, 2024, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 3,125 U.S. likely voters, including 1,944 rural voters, across the following battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and 2020 recalled vote. To differentiate respondents by urbanicity (major city, medium city, suburban, mid-sized city, rural, and small city/town) we matched respondents to their most likely urbanicity categorization at the zip code level. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error associated with the sample size is ±2 percentage points. Results for subgroups of the sample are subject to increased margins of error. Partisanship reflected in tabulations is based on self-identified party affiliation, not partisan registration.

In March 2024, Breakthrough Campaigns conducted a survey of 1,713 registered 2024 voters in rural and small-town zip codes in the same states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), with oversamples of Black, Latino/a, and Native American voters.