Republicans won small towns and rural areas by only 16 points in Tuesday's midterms, half of their 32-point margin in 2024 and close to the 14-point edge they held in the 2018 blue wave, according to exit polling. The shift helped Democrats take both chambers of Congress and win Senate seats in farm states that had long been out of reach, including Iowa, Kansas and Texas. Polls had shown much of it coming for months, as diesel prices, tariffs and the cost of living squeezed rural households.
"This year has been one of the worst farming years of my 43 year career," John Boyd Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association, told Newsweek. Boyd said he was due in court on Thursday over a $41,000 fertilizer bill he does not have the money to pay. While it was a tough night for Republicans, rural voters still favored the party, 57 percent to 41 percent, and it is too early to know how much of Tuesday's move will stick.
Measures of the swing differ, though all point the same way. The Fox News Voter Poll found rural voters went from backing President Donald Trump by 28 points in 2024 to Republican House candidates by 18 points on Tuesday. A Pew Research Center analysis cited by put Trump's 2024 rural margin even higher, at 40 points.
County returns back that up. A Washington Post analysis found rural counties moved more than 15 points toward Democrats compared with 2024. Across more than 1,500 rural counties where nearly all ballots had been counted by Wednesday, Republican candidates ran 8 points behind Trump's 2024 vote share, according to totals compiled by and USA Today.
Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since 1932. Adam Hamilton beat Republican Senator Roger Marshall, leaning on the Kansas City suburbs while the state's rural west and center also moved left, the Post reported. In Seward County, where about half of eligible voters are Hispanic, Hamilton won by 13 points two years after Trump carried it by 39, according to .
Iowa's Senate race moved about 17 points toward Democrats from the 2024 presidential result, according to NBC News, as Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Representative Ashley Hinson. Every one of Texas' 171 rural counties shifted toward Democrats in the governor and Senate races, a Daily Yonder analysis found. In South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews ousted Republican Senator Darline Graham with the help of about 138,500 rural votes, according to the Yonder.
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