A plurality (41 percent) of voters in counties that flipped from Obama to Trump or saw a significant Republican surge, many of them rural, think the country is worse off now than it was a year ago; 32 percent think it’s better off. And 53 percent say they don't think Trump has a clear agenda on how to address major issues facing the country. And though Trump has a higher approval rating in these "flip" or "surge" counties than in the nation as a whole, his approval appears to be waning. But that doesn't mean they're warming to Hillary Clinton: though Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders got higher approval ratings than Trump, only 23 percent have a positive view of Clinton.
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| NBC News map; click on the image to enlarge it. |
"Obama-Trump voters represented only about 4 percent of the electorate. But because they were concentrated in the swing states of the industrial north-east and mid-west, they outweighed Mrs. Clinton’s more modest gains with groups such as the college-educated whites who migrated from the Republicans to the Democrats. They are the main reason Mr. Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the states that sealed his victory," James Astill writes in his Lexington column for The Economist.
That's why both parties--and increasingly, the news media--are paying attention to rural voters. "In the mid-term elections, the Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to take the House of Representatives, and many of their likeliest gains are in places, such as Iowa and Pennsylvania, thick with Obama-Trump voters," Astill writes. "Democrats are planning a fusillade of messaging on the bread-and-butter economic issues they believe switchers care about most. . . . Some switchers do seem open to persuasion. Almost 30 percent voted for a Democratic House candidate in 2016, which suggests both a residual tie to the party and how singularly Mrs. Clinton was disliked."
It's well-known that economic woes and cultural anxieties helped drive voters to Trump. In his column (published last week), Astill wonders whether Democrats have the wherewithal to assuage flip-voters' worries on that score. It's too soon to tell how the 2018 midterms will fall out, but the pro-Democrat carnage of yesterday's election suggests it's a possibility.
from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2AoDPu0 41% of voters who flipped from Obama to Trump think the country is worse off now - Entrepreneur Generations
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