Welcome to Mile Markers, a bimonthly newsletter about rural higher education. I’m Nick Fouriezos, an Open Campus national reporter who grew up at the crossroads of suburban Atlanta and the foothills of Appalachia.

Today’s Roadmap

01: Postcards: Exploring apathy among young rural voters

01: Postcards

I’m going to get to the stats, I promise. But before getting into the growing research about disaffected rural voters, I want to start with a song. You’ve probably heard these lines before: 

These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don't think you know, but I know that you do 

The song is “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony. It went viral on Monday when Donald Trump was seen head-bobbing along at his town hall in Oaks, Penn.  

It’s been on my mind lately, as its notes of disassociation tap into a larger feeling among a swathe of rural and working-class Americans that politicians are no longer working on their behalf.

That matches a Tufts University survey that found rural residents ages 18-34 feel disengaged with their communities and are less civically engaged. And as we prepare for a general election in which rural turnout will play a key role in several swing states — including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina —that matters.

That Tufts University survey found that while 64% of white youth and 51% of non-white urban youth indicated they were “extremely likely” to vote in the 2024 election, that was true of just 55% and 48% of their white and non-white rural counterparts, respectively.

Granted, the survey was released in April. A lot has changed in the presidential election then, shifts that aren’t captured in this research. Joe Biden has dropped out and Kamala Harris has replaced him as the Democratic nominee. And, both parties now have vice presidential nominees with ties to rural America

Still, this trend of rural apathy has existed for a few cycles now. Rural youth turnout lagged significantly behind urban youth the past two elections: the percent difference was 15% in 2020 and 13%  in 2022. 

Interestingly, some of that disparity may be addressed with education: The researchers found that the differences between rural and urban peers in turnout essentially disappeared among rural folks who spent some time in college, even if they didn’t receive a degree.

In the past, some of those engagement gaps were chalked up to rural youth being more likely to live in “Civic Deserts,” areas where they had fewer opportunities to observe, participate, and learn about civic and political engagement. That’s a term coined by CIRCLE, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

In 2017, 60% of rural youth were labeled as living in these areas.

At the time, CIRCLE researchers suggested that these Civic Deserts were contributing to feelings of alienation that led to lower voter mobilization and choice. This time, though, rural and urban youth had similar levels of civic information, researcher Ruby Belle Booth — the lead author on the April survey — found. 

“It doesn't mean there weren't inequities, but it highlighted something else entirely,” she told me.

That "something else" is what Booth and her colleagues call "civic support" — a concept that goes beyond mere access to information or opportunities.

"We found that rural youth and urban youth had similar levels of civic information. But when we asked if they had people or institutions to turn to, to help them interpret that information and take action on it, rural youth were far less likely to say yes.”

To be exact, a quarter of rural youth felt that way, compared to 36% of their urban peers. And other CIRCLE survey research found that while rural youth belonged to community groups at similar rates to their urban counterparts, less than 1 in 5 felt like they had opportunities to use their voice in those groups. 

Booth makes the argument that presidential campaigns are incentivized to prioritize youth voters in more urban areas over rural ones.

“They are trying to leverage what little funds they have to get as many people registered and turned out as they can, and there is a tendency for mobilizing young voters that results in campaigns only reaching out to the youngest voters who are easiest to reach out to — so you’re probably going to go to the biggest colleges, and to the ones where you already have a large volunteer base.” 

However, it seems candidates have at least tried to pay more attention to rural voters in recent cycles. Many saw the 62% of rural Americans who voted Republican in 2016 as the defining reason why Donald Trump made it to the White House. 

Trump has continued to play to his rural base in many ways, including launching a “Rural Americans for Trump” coalition in August.  But the Biden administration has made a play for those voters too, releasing a number of rural-focused initiatives and programs that included his Investing in Rural America Event Series to cap off 2023. 

It isn’t surprising anymore to see a candidate launch a specific policy slate for Rural America, as VP candidate Tim Waltz did on behalf of Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

In the last year, the CIRCLE researchers have conducted a number of surveys and nonpartisan listening groups in rural communities to try to learn what can be done to address some of these disparities.

They published some broad takeaways, including creating more support for young leaders and telling different stories about rural youth and their communities. And for Booth, one of the most interesting findings came while visiting with AmeriCorps volunteers in Appalachian Pennsylvania. 

"We heard so often from them that the volunteer programs they were participating in were giving them pathways to future careers and education opportunities that so many of their peers don't have," Booth says. 

She believes that connection between civic engagement and career development could be a game-changer for rural communities. It's not just about voting or volunteering, but about building a future where young people see themselves as active participants in shaping their communities.

"There's extraordinary untapped potential for these opportunities and experiences to drive youth civic engagement in rural communities," she says.

How these trends will affect the results in November is still unclear.

During the 2016 presidential election, CIRCLE found that young people who lived in Civic Deserts were less likely to vote compared to others with more civic resources.

If they did vote, they were slightly more likely to choose Trump, but the researchers found that could also be due to many other statistically-correlated factors, including being white, male and not having a four-year college degree.

Given their deep feelings of disillusionment, the biggest impact might not come from who young rural voters choose at the polls, but whether they get to the polls at all.

And as for whether songs like “Rich Men North Of Richmond” are signs of a broader trend of rural voter apathy and disillusionment? 

“Sometime in the spring, we’ll be sharing more findings about that based on our post-election survey,” Booth says. “That sentiment is really strong for a lot of young people, although not all young people. I’m really curious to see if the data shows that it’s more rural specific or if it’s a feeling driven by party or ideology.”  

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