![]() ![]() In their recent research, Scala and Johnson (2017) show a consistent gradient of social conservatism on a wide range of social and economic issues moving from large urban cores to the most rural counties. Indeed, the rural preference for Republicans is consistent with research on rural-urban attitudes toward major economic and social issues, including jobs, immigration, abortion, same sex marriage, gun control, and climate change ( Dillon & Savage 2006 Morin 2016 Scala and Johnson 2017). The Republican stronghold in those areas is not new ( McKee and Teigen 2009 Morrill et al. Like Mitt Romney in 2012, Donald Trump garnered large vote shares throughout Appalachia, the rural South, Great Plains, and Mountain West. Instead, Trump’s combined rural and small city over-performance (and Clinton’s underperformance), particularly in the Industrial Midwest, was key to Trump’s unanticipated victory. Therefore, although Trump’s rural advantage certainly contributed to his victory, it was not sufficient to swing the election on its own or to support media rhetoric of a new “rural revolt”. population and a similar share of votes cast in 2016. Moreover, rural voters account for only about 15 percent of the total U.S. Republicans have long won larger rural vote shares, particularly in Appalachia, the Great Plains, and parts of the South ( McKee and Teigen 2009 Scala and Johnson 2017). 2 But Trump’s rural advantage in the 2016 election did not signal a new trend. 31.3%), and his vote share increased with increasing levels of rurality ( Figure 1). To be sure, Donald Trump received a much larger share of the rural 1 vote than Hillary Clinton (63.2 percent vs. In articles like Rural America and a Silent Majority Powered Trump to a Win ( Whitaker 2016), America’s Front-Porch Revolt ( Dreher 2016), and Revenge of the Rural Voter ( Evich 2016), journalists argued that Trump was victorious due to rural Americans’ frustrations with political insiders after years of neglect of rural economic and social problems. With a few races still undecided, Republicans so far hold a 239-193 majority for the next Congress.The role of the rural vote was a provocative storyline in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Republicans captured the majority of the "popular vote" for the House on Election Day, collecting about 56.3 million votes while Democrats got about 53.2 million, according to USA TODAY calculations. ![]() Until that race is settled, Republicans have 51 Senate seats for the Congress that will convene in January Democrats have 46, plus two independents who generally align with them. 10 runoff between the two top vote-getters, Democrat Foster Campbell and Republican John Kennedy. Republican candidates in that race collected 1.2 million votes while Democrats collected just under 700,000 votes. Louisiana also complicates the calculations because there were 24 candidates running for a Senate seat and nobody got a majority of the votes. Chuck Schumer of New York was re-elected with 4.8 million votes. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was re-elected with 111,000 votes Democratic Sen. The vote totals for Senate are also a bit arbitrary because each state gets two senators no matter how few people live there. Had a Republican Senate candidate in California captured as many votes as Sanchez did - about 2.9 million - the total for the two parties nationwide would have been about even. If you count only Harris' winning vote total of 4.9 million, Democrats still tally 42.2 million votes. Together, they received 7.8 million votes. In California, for example, there were two Democrats - Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez - competing for an open Senate seat, with no Republican on the ballot. The problem for Democrats is that, much like the Electoral College, the number of votes matters less than where those votes are cast. (In the White House race, as of Thursday afternoon, Clinton had 60.1 million votes and Trump had 59.8 million.) In results that are still preliminary, 45.2 million Americans cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate, while 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican. Senate than Republicans, and yet Republicans maintained their majority on Capitol Hill. It turns out that Democrats also got more votes for the U.S. The White House may not be the only institution in Washington that Democrats lost on Tuesday despite getting more votes than Republicans. Watch Video: GOP controls House, Senate and White House ![]()
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