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2026 Poster Session A

A68 - Effects of Geographic Location on Party Affiliation and Voting in Rural and Urban Communities

Since the late 1990s, there has been a nationwide growing rural-urban political divide between Republican and Democratic party affiliations (Brown et al., 2021, p. 365).

2026 Poster Session A

A68 - Effects of Geographic Location on Party Affiliation and Voting in Rural and Urban Communities

Mentor: Carolyn Craig

Since the late 1990s, there has been a nationwide growing rural-urban political divide between Republican and Democratic party affiliations (Brown et al., 2021, p. 365). Rural areas have a long-standing tradition of allegiance to the Republican party, whereas urban areas and big cities tend to favor the Democratic party (Brown et al., 2021, p. 365). With this knowledge of the rural-urban divide, the pattern of voting and party affiliation can often be determined and predicted based on a multitude of factors including place attachment(Gimpel & Reeves, 2024) along with occupation, age, gender, race, and ethnicity within a community (Nadeem, 2024). The growth of polarization feeds the divide between big city urban areas, and rural farmland areas which often works against the interests of these communities and causes tension between them.

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