The awesome power of rural voters

A new chart compiled by Bill Bishop and Tim Murphy captures brilliantly the lingering power of rural and exurban voters.

The chart looks at the 2004 presidential elections and shows that unified voting and massive turnout in rural communities can swamp more divided urban and suburban communities.

Read in full here:

http://www.dailyyonder.com/past-prologue-looking-2004-rural-urban-and-exurban-vote

Highlights:

In Ohio, the 29% of residents who live in small towns and exurbs racked up an astonishing 311,000 net Republican votes for George Bush. (That’s the margin of Bush over Kerry.)

Urban communities — which make up 70% of Ohio’s population — went Democratic, but by narrower margins, chipping in a net tally for John Kerry of only 182,000 votes.

In Virginia, Bush and Kerry effectively tied in urban communities (Bush eked out a 3,000 vote advantage).

But the Republican blew Kerry away in low population counties, racking up net vote advantages of more than 250,000.

In New York, the game played out in the opposite direction. The 15% of New Yorkers who live in rural and exurban communities gave a net advantage of 90,000 votes to Bush.

But they were overwhelmed by Democratic urban voters, who netted 1.4 million votes for Kerry.

Is past prologue? Will rural voters once again sweep aside urban-based Democrats in key states such as Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia?

We’ll know in two weeks.