Review: Who Is the Rural Voter? Book Builds on Old Themes to Create New Understanding

In their new book, The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America, Colby College political scientists Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea set out to describe what differentiates the politics of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan places. Drawing on the largest survey ever conducted with the specific aim of understanding rural voters, they seek to explain the recent rightward shift of the American countryside. 

While rural voters only make up around 15% of the American electorate, their emergence as a reliable conservative voting bloc has redrawn the maps...