How have specific Trump policies affected voter attitudes in rural counties since 2020?
Executive summary
Since 2020, Trump-era policy choices — especially on trade, immigration, health care and economic messaging — have reshaped rural voter attitudes in contradictory ways: they entrenched cultural and identity alignment with Trump while producing tangible economic grievances that are eroding enthusiasm in some places [1] [2] [3]. Reporting shows rural counties often rewarded Trump at the ballot box even where his policies hurt local economics, but polls and on-the-ground accounts since 2024–25 reveal growing pockets of resentment that Democrats and some Republicans now see as an opening [4] [5] [6] [3].
1. Policy wins that reinforced loyalty: tariffs, immigration, and “standing up” for rural identity
Trump’s trade and immigration posture — the 2018–19 trade fights that produced tariffs and the hardline immigration rhetoric — reinforced a narrative that Washington would finally prioritize rural and working-class voters, helping sustain and even increase his margins in many farming and non‑college-white counties in 2020 and beyond [4] [1] [2]. Multiple post‑2020 analyses find Trump’s margin in rural America grew or remained dominant, with 2020 rural support described as especially strong and rural voters’ cultural grievances amplified by the campaign’s identity framing [1] [7] [2].
2. Policy pain: tariffs, healthcare closures and the squeeze on pocketbooks
At the same time, concrete policy effects — disrupted export markets from the trade war, closures or cuts to rural health centers, and persistent affordability pressures — produced localized economic pain that undercut the “I’m better off” promise, leaving farmers and small towns blaming administration choices for higher costs and service losses [3] [5] [8]. Reporting from 2024–25 highlights farmers and rural voters experiencing fallout from tariff-driven market shifts and healthcare retrenchment, contributing to anger even where party loyalty remains strong [3] [4].
3. The paradox: vote share up even as approval softens
Despite tangible harms, Trump’s vote share in many rural counties increased through 2024, with some farming-dependent counties showing higher average support than in 2020 — a sign that cultural identity, polarized media ecosystems and distrust of Democrats often outweighed immediate pocketbook concerns at the ballot box [4] [9]. Yet contemporaneous polling from 2025 shows rural approval for Trump has softened in some samples, suggesting enthusiasm and approval are not identical; approval has slipped even while vote share remained high in many places [6] [4].
4. Demographic and structural drivers that mediate policy effects
Scholarly work underscores that rural voting is tightly correlated with race and educational attainment; when analysts control for those factors the effect of “rural” itself weakens, meaning policies interact with long‑standing structural traits — high shares of white, non‑college voters and economic decline from deindustrialization — to shape responses to Trump’s agenda [7] [10]. That structural backdrop helps explain why many rural voters tolerate economic pain: political realignment began earlier than any single policy and policies are filtered through identity and place-based resentment [10] [2].
5. Emerging fractures and political opportunity for opponents
Several outlets and strategists argue the cumulative effect of tariff fallout, inflationary pressures and service cuts has opened a narrow, practical window for Democrats to “eat into” historic Trump margins by targeting cost‑of‑living issues rather than trying to flip entire counties outright — the strategic aim being to reduce margins rather than win most rural counties [3] [11]. Local accounts and polling cited by Politico and others show both parties recognize a potential shift tied to immediate economic grievances even as cultural loyalty remains robust [3] [5].
6. Limits of the record and what remains unclear
Available reporting makes clear associations between policies and attitudes, but cannot fully disentangle causality at a granular level: some counties increased Trump support despite direct policy harms and some voters mix cultural loyalty with economic anger in ways that surveys only partially capture [4] [6] [7]. Where sources diverge — national polling that shows declining rural approval versus electoral returns that show continued strong vote shares — the evidence points to a contingent, evolving relationship between policy effects and voter attitudes rather than a simple one‑to‑one shift [6] [4] [9].