Rural voters distrustful of Washington on climate
NEW YORK — Drought in California meant Raquel Krach, a rice farmer and graduate student in the Sacramento Valley, planted very little. Using groundwater, she and her husband planted 75 acres this year to maintain their markets. The rest of the 200 acres she typically sows remained empty due to an inadequate water supply.
The 53-year-old Democrat said it’s clear to her that climate change is responsible. But she says that notion is a deeply divisive one in her community.
“Our connections to our neighbors are pretty limited because our views are so different. Climate change is normally a topic we don’t even broach because our views are so different,” Krach said.
The impacts of climate change hit communities across the country, including Krach’s, yet voters in rural communities are the least likely to feel Washington is in their corner on the issue. Rural Americans and experts suggest there’s a disconnect between the way leaders talk about climate change and the way these communities experience it.
AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the 2022 midterm electorate, shows clear differences between urban and rural communities in voter sentiment on President Joe Biden ’s handling of climate, and whether climate change is impacting their communities.
About half of voters nationwide approve of the president’s handling of the issue, despite the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act this summer that meant historic investments aimed at reducing the emissions that cause climate change. While around 6 in 10 urban voters approve, the figure drops to about half for suburbanites and roughly 4 in 10 for rural voters.
The urban-rural divide exists within the Republican Party, showing those differences aren’t driven solely by a partisan split between bluer cities and redder countryside. While 27 percent of urban Republicans approve of Biden’s leadership on climate, only 14 percent of small-town and rural Republicans say the same, VoteCast showed.
Sarah Jaynes, the executive director of the Rural Democracy Initiative, which provides funding to groups that support progressive policies in rural areas, suggested the overarching urban-rural divide has a lot to do with messaging issues.
“People in rural areas and small towns are less likely to think that Democrats are fighting for people like them, so there’s a partisan trust issue,” Jaynes said. “I think there’s an issue where people don’t want to signal that they’re supporting Democrats in rural communities right now.”
VoteCast also shows that despite nationwide climate crises — from hurricanes to wildfires to droughts — there’s varying concern among voters about whether climate change is in their backyards. About threequarters of urban voters are at least somewhat worried about the effects of climate change in their communities, compared to about 6 in 10 suburbanites and about half of small-town and rural voters.
That difference isn’t necessarily explained by a lack of belief in climate change within rural communities. A September AP-NORC poll showed majorities across community types say climate change is happening.
“If you’re speaking to climate generally, rural people can feel like, ‘Well, do you really care about me? Are you talking about me?’ ” Jaynes said. “If you ask them, ‘Are you concerned about flooding? Are you concerned about the water crisis? Are you concerned about the impacts of extreme weather?’ You’re going to hear a lot more positively when you meet them where they are.”