How rural vs urban polarization can be repaired

Government scholars Suzanne Mettler and Trevor Brown both grew up in rural communities - and both were struck by how divided those small towns became.

"Growing up, many of my family friends voted for Democrats and were far more optimistic about politics," said Brown, Ph.D. '25, co-author with Mettler of "Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide that Threatens Democracy," published in September by Princeton University Press. "More recently, they have been energized by the Republican Party, and more distrustful of institutions associated with urban areas."

To find how shifts in rural politics are related to growing polarization, Brown and Mettler, Ph.D. '94, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the College of Arts and Sciences, analyzed data spanning five decades and all 3,143 U.S. counties. They interviewed local party leaders and former elected officials, focusing on Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, and to a lesser extent, Missouri and Texas.

In the book, they show how the divide emerged over the past 30 years, how it's been deepened by politically active organizations that help win support for the Republican Party, and why it poses a threat to democracy. Effective one-party rule in rural regions exacerbates that party's advantage in the American political system, such as representation in the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College, they write. But they also argue that the present polarization is not inevitable - or beyond repair.

"We are certainly concerned, but we do not think we have reached a point of no return," said Brown, a postdoctoral associate at Johns Hopkins University who will join the University of Oregon's Department of Political Science in 2026. "Just as politics helped make the rural-urban divide, political activity can help bridge it."

The College of Arts and Sciences spoke with Mettler and Brown about the book.

Question: How did both your methods of research - data analysis and interviews - work in tandem?

Answer: The quantitative data give us broad coverage across both place and time. It allows us to analyze economic, demographic and even attitudinal trends so we can see how things have changed over time and across places, and test different theories as to why politics has changed so much in rural areas.

The interviews helped us understand how politics was playing out "on the ground" in the day-to-day life of rural people. They brought to life the patterns we were seeing in the quantitative data, providing examples in actual places.

Q: How has the place-based partisan divide manifested in Congress?

A: As recently as the 1990s, Democrats sent dozens of members of Congress from some of the most rural districts in the country. As we show in the book, these lawmakers were key for advancing public policy that extended health insurance and regulated the economy in a fairer way. More recently, however, we find that rural districts have become mostly dominated by Republicans. In fact, while we do not find evidence that rural people are any more extreme than urban people, rural areas are sending some of the most conservative members to Congress. These members of Congress have helped foster political dysfunction and voted for extremely unpopular policies, such as the recent tax cuts whose benefits go mostly to the super rich.

Q: How do the developments you describe threaten democracy?

A: In local places, the rural-urban divide subjects residents to one-party rule. That often leaves voters without a meaningful choice of candidates, and it makes elected officials less accountable to the public, which can lead to poor representation or even corruption. For the nation as a whole, today's rural-urban divide can undermine majority rule. That's because for the first time in U.S. history, the nation's institutional features that give extra political clout to less-populated places (such as the structure of the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, etc.) are now all concentrated within one political party that happens to dominate those places. That is enabling that party to have an outsized voice in federal elections and in turn in determining the shape of all three branches of the federal government, even when the majority of voters prefer different outcomes.

Q: When thinking of paths forward, why do you put your hopes in organizing and relationship building?

A: We certainly think lawmakers should work to improve the economy for rural people through public policy reforms. That would help improve the lives of millions of people. In fact, many of the policy proposals that would help rural areas would also help urban ones. But we don't think that is sufficient to reduce the political and social polarization we find. We argue instead that the Democratic Party needs to regain a foothold in rural areas by investing in organizing. Currently, rural areas are dominated by one party. But for democracy to function well, voters need a real choice at the polls. Investing in party building can also help policy makers regain trust among constituents who often see them as distant, out of touch elites.

Kate Blackwood is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.