{"id":6596,"date":"2012-09-24T08:08:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T12:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=6596"},"modified":"2012-09-24T10:56:33","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T14:56:33","slug":"100-day-sprint-rural-voters-keep-romney-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/09\/24\/100-day-sprint-rural-voters-keep-romney-afloat\/","title":{"rendered":"100 Day Sprint: Rural voters keep Romney afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Graphic: NPR. Click for larger version.<\/p><\/div>\n

If small town America were deciding this year’s presidential contest, it would be no contest at all.\u00a0 According to a new poll released today<\/a>, Mitt Romney holds a 14-point lead over Barack Obama among rural voters in nine swing states.<\/p>\n

54% of rural voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin favored the Republican.\u00a0 Obama drew only 40%.<\/p>\n

That means Romney is faring 4 points better than John McCain at the same period four years ago.\u00a0 Obama’s support in small town battleground communities has dropped more than 6 points.<\/p>\n

Republican Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies helped design the survey.\u00a0 In a statement, he said that Obama’s challenge “is just not to get beat too badly in the rural areas.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"\u201cThis presages a very close election because, as well as Obama did in the rural areas in 2008, he’s clearly not replicating that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrat Greenberg agreed. \u201cRural areas in this country are very tough for President Obama,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was tough four years ago and they\u2019re even tougher now. I think that that is obviously important in a very close presidential race because it\u2019s really Mitt Romney\u2019s geographic base.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rural voters will also be key in the GOP’s effort to retake a majority in the US Senate.\u00a0 In states like Missouri and Virginia, small towns are tilting heavily toward Republican candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If small town America were deciding this year’s presidential contest, it would be no contest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6550,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6601,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions\/6601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}