9.8 Myths about Rural States and Rural Voters

Tara Ross, a lobbyist against the National Popular Vote Compact who works closely with Save Our States, wrote:

“NPV will lessen the need of presidential candidates to obtain the support of voters in rural areas and in small states.”[287] [Emphasis added]

Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation has stated:

“The NPV scheme would … diminish the influence of smaller states and rural areas of the country.”[288]

The myth that the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is advantageous to rural states is not supported by the facts.

Rural states have almost no political influence in the general-election campaign for President under the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes.

The reason is that political clout under the current system comes from being a closely divided state, and rural states are usually one-party states in presidential elections.

The 10 states with the highest percentage of rural residents are:

• Maine–61%[289]
• Vermont–61%
• West Virginia–51%
• Mississippi–51%
• Montana–44%
• Arkansas–44%
• South Dakota–43%
• Kentucky–42%
• Alabama–41%
• North Dakota–40%.

None of the 10 most rural states was a closely divided state in 2020, 2016, or 2012.

Moreover, even if one considers the 20 most rural states, only four were battleground states in 2020, 2016, or 2012, namely New Hampshire (12^th most rural), Iowa (13^th most rural), North Carolina (16^th most rural), and Wisconsin (20^th most rural).

In table 9.26:

• Column 2 shows each state’s total population.
• Column 3 shows the state’s urban-suburban population.
• Column 4 shows the state’s rural population.
• Column 5 shows the percentage of the state’s population that is rural (column 2 divided by column 4). Nationwide, this percentage is 19.27%.
• Column 6 shows the state’s “rural index”—obtained by dividing the state’s rural percentage by the overall national rural percentage of 19.27%. An index provides a quick way to compare a state with the nation as a whole. An index above 100 indicates that the state is more rural than the nation as a whole, whereas an index below 100 indicates that the state is less rural. The states appear in the table in descending order based on their “rural index.”

Table 9.26 Rural population by state

In contrast, in a national popular vote for President, voters in rural states would not be siloed by state boundary lines.

The country’s rural population is almost exactly equal to the population of the 100 biggest cities.

Specifically, the rural population, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, was 59,492,267 people—that is, 19.3% of the country’s population of 308,745,538 according to the 2010 census.[290]

The 100 biggest cities in the United States had 59,849,899 people—that is, 19.3% of the U.S. population).[291]

The 2020 census confirmed that the country’s rural population is almost exactly equal to the population of the 100 biggest cities, as shown by the data in section 9.6.1.

Footnotes