In rural parts of America, it wasn’t just white men who flocked to the polls on Election Day to vote for Donald Trump. Rural white women were right there in the voting lines with them.
The NBC News national exit poll documented how Trump and his populist message disproportionately appealed to both white men and women living in rural America. A recent survey by Pew Research Center, conducted this spring in association with the Markle Foundation, illustrates the depth of their financial frustrations with the status quo on some key economic measures – anxieties that are more deeply felt by rural whites than by whites living in the nation’s cities or suburbs.
Overall, Trump won small towns and rural America easily on Nov. 8, claiming 62% of the votes while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received 34%. By contrast, Trump won a more modest 50% to 45% victory in the suburbs while losing handily to Clinton in urban areas 59% to 35%.
