A recent study published in American Politics Research sheds light on the connection between geography, identity, and political trust in the United States. The findings reveal that both living in rural areas and identifying with rural regions are linked to lower levels of trust in the federal government. This trend persists regardless of whether a Republican or Democratic president is in office, offering new insights into the political divide between rural and urban America.
James R. G. Kirk of the University of Notre Dame conducted the study to explore whether political trust varies across the urban-rural spectrum. While there have been many observations about political behaviors and attitudes differing between urban and rural populations, less is known about how place and place-based identity affect trust in the federal government. The authors were motivated by the fact that political distrust seems to be more prominent in rural areas.
For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination rates were significantly lower in rural counties compared to urban ones, pointing to a possible distrust of government-led health initiatives. Additionally, rural areas have been strongholds for anti-establishment politics, particularly under Donald Trump’s leadership, which often centered on skepticism of government and elites. These observations raised a crucial question: are Americans in rural areas inherently less trusting of the government?
To explore this, Kirk used data from two large national surveys conducted during the 2016 and 2020 election cycles—the American National Election Studies (ANES). These surveys, which include a wide range of political and demographic questions, allowed him to examine trust in government across different geographic contexts and time periods.
He specifically wanted to understand how rurality, both in terms of where people live and how they identify, influenced trust in the federal government. In addition to measuring geographic location, the 2020 survey asked respondents how they perceived their own identity in terms of whether they considered themselves a “rural person” or more aligned with urban or suburban life.
The sample used in this study was broad and representative, including respondents from across the United States, both rural and urban. Kirk employed different measures of rurality to capture both physical location (whether someone lives in a rural, suburban, or urban area) and place-based identity (whether someone identifies as being from a rural area, regardless of where they currently live). This distinction was important because rural identity, as proposed in earlier research, might go beyond geographic boundaries and reflect a deeper, cultural or psychological connection to rural life, possibly influencing attitudes toward the government in unique ways.
Kirk used statistical methods to analyze the data, including regression models to test whether rurality—both in residence and in identity—was associated with lower levels of trust in the federal government. He controlled for a variety of factors, such as political party identification, income, education, age, and gender, to isolate the impact of rurality on political trust.
The findings confirmed Kirk’s hypothesis: people who live in rural areas or who identify as being from a rural area tend to trust the federal government less. This held true across both the 2016 and 2020 surveys, even though they covered very different political environments—one under the presidency of Barack Obama, a Democrat, and the other under Donald Trump, a Republican. Kirk noted that this consistency suggests that the urban-rural divide in political trust is not merely a function of party politics. In other words, rural distrust of the government persists regardless of which party is in power.
One of the key insights from the study is that rurality, both as a place and an identity, has a substantive effect on political trust. The impact of rurality on trust in government was found to be greater than half of the effect size of political party affiliation or ideological conservatism. This suggests that where someone lives, or how they identify with rural life, can shape their attitudes toward government in a way that is comparable to, if not stronger than, the influence of partisanship.
Interestingly, Kirk found that rural distrust of the federal government was evident under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Typically, trust in government is influenced by partisan alignment—Republicans tend to trust the government more when a Republican is president, and Democrats trust it more under a Democratic president. However, the rural-urban gap in trust persisted across both partisan contexts, indicating that rural Americans may feel alienated from the federal government regardless of which party holds power.
The study has several important implications. First, it reinforces the idea that America’s urban-rural divide extends beyond voting patterns and ideological preferences to include fundamental attitudes about government institutions. The persistence of rural distrust, even under a Republican president, suggests that there is a deeper, more ingrained skepticism in rural communities that transcends party politics. This distrust may be linked to broader feelings of disenfranchisement and the belief that the government is out of touch with rural concerns, a theme that has been highlighted in previous research on rural identity.
Kirk also pointed out several limitations to his study. One limitation is that while he was able to measure both rural residence and rural identity, the data from the surveys was self-reported. This means that respondents’ perceptions of their own identity and geographic location may not perfectly align with objective measures of rurality. For instance, someone living in a small town might identify more with rural life, or vice versa, which could introduce some variability in the data. Additionally, the study focused specifically on trust in the federal government, but it is possible that rural Americans have different levels of trust in state or local governments, or in specific government programs, that were not captured in this research.
Looking forward, Kirk suggests that future studies should explore the underlying causes of rural distrust in greater detail. He recommends examining how different aspects of rural life, such as economic conditions, access to services, and cultural factors, might contribute to political attitudes. Furthermore, there is a need to investigate how rural political distrust intersects with other identities, such as race and ethnicity, to provide a more nuanced understanding of the urban-rural divide in political trust.
The study, “Landscape of Distrust: Political Trust Across America’s Urban-Rural Divide,” was published online on August 13, 2024.
