Results

Rural & Urban Differences:

Rural areas consist of more area and land, with a lower population density compared to urban and suburban areas.  Americans living in rural areas have a continued allegiance to the Republican party, their candidates, and policies (Brown et al., 2021, p. 365; Nadeem, 2024, p. 45) with 60% of the population identifying as Republican and 35% as Democrat (Nadeem, 2024, p. 45).  Urban communities are on the opposite spectrum of this, with continued support for the Democratic party and their ideology (Brown et al., 2021, p. 365; Nadeem, 2024, p. 45) and 60% of the population identifying as Democrat and 37% as Republican (Nadeem, 2024, p. 45).  Urban areas consist of larger cities with less land and high population density. Kaufman (2021) discusses that a possible explanation for the tie between rural areas and conservative political affiliation is rural communities' common priorities of Christian values and social conservatism, labeling themselves as the values voters.  This trend carries into Kaufman (2021) next possible explanation that rural voters tend to feel left behind by the government in a multitude of ways including economically and socially, therefore preferring a more conservative government that is small and focuses on the state and local level. 

Place Attachement: 

One of the most important driving factors of political affiliation based on geographic location is place attachment.  Gimpel & Reeves (2024) defines place attachment as “being measured by contentment, satisfaction, and identification with where one lives”.  The more content a person is with where they live, the more likely they are to identify with conservative views and political policies.  Whereas, the more discontent a person is with where they live, the more likely they are to identify with progressive liberalist ideas in U.S politics (Gimpel & Reeves, 2024).  Gimpel & Reeves (2024) argues that living farther away from big cities and less populated areas leads to higher rates of place attachment, leading to higher rates of contentment to their communities and therefore more conservative, not wanting change. 

National Rhetoric & American Identity:  

National rhetoric and American national identity play a crucial role in national and local elections and politics.  Specifically in the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and incumbent Donald Trump.  Rural communities felt that they were being represented on a large scale nationally with Donald Trump winning the 2016 election, and living in the United States becoming increasingly urban centered this was a huge win for the 46 million rural Americans (Lichter & Ziliak, 2017).  Lichter & Ziliak (2017) explains in extensive detail how rural-small town Americans can often be forgotten in national politics as they are not a part of the growing urbanization and therefore the growing market, leaving them to simply wait on the side for someone to represent them at the national level.  Trump was able to win the 2016 election by using this knowledge to his advantage, winning the “agricultural heartland”, Midwest, and Appalachia (Lichter & Ziliak, 2017, p. 7).  

In the 2020 election an American national identity was an even more important factor for winning votes, as both Biden and Trump attempted to embody their version of it.  Biden used civic nationalist tradition to defend the American identity that is rooted in liberal symbols, whereas Trump used the ethnic nationalist tradition to defend the American identity that is rooted in white American symbols (Woods et al., 2024).  The two candidates attempted to make the other look like a threat to American Democracy, as they both believed they were properly embodying national rhetoric ​​(Woods et al., 2024).  Biden argued that his campaign was a “battle for the soul of America” (Woods et al., 2024, p. 173) further proving that he pushed the ideal that he embodied American national identity.