McCain leads Obama by 9 points in rural areas of states that are expected to be battlegrounds

Republican John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50 percent to 41 percent in a poll of rural voters in 13 states that are expected to be battlegrounds in the fall election for president. Hillary Clinton, whose Democratic campaign is nearing an end, tied with McCain at 46 percent in the bipartisan poll conducted for the Center for Rural Strategies. "Obama fares considerably worse in the eastern portion of the Midwest and the South, while performing better in the West and Northeast," the pollsters said. (Associated Press photo from January 2007)

"The poll indicates that [McCain] cannot count on rural voters to provide him a winning margin," as they did for President Bush in 2000 and 2004, rural correspondent Howard Berkes reported on National Public Radio. Republican pollster Bill Greener told Berkes that McCain needs to widen his rural margin to win the election, and Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg was more specific: "If John McCain can't win rural voters by the same kind of margin that George Bush did, it's hard for me to see how he wins the election." Bush won rural counties by 16 percentage points in 2000 election and by 19 points in 2004. For an audio version of Berkes's report, including interviews with voters, click here.

Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, told NPR that the poll was good news for Obama "because he's only losing rural voters by nine points. ... He's pretty well-positioned to do very well in these swing states." Obama has had difficulty attracting rural voters in some states, particularly in Appalachia and the Rust Belt, but Abramowitz said he has an opening on economic issues. More than half of the voters in the poll, 54 percent, agreed with this statement: "John McCain served his country honorably, but he does not seem to understand my economic problems." But 52 percent agreed with this statement: "Barack Obama says he wants to represent all of America, but he does not share my values."

The pollsters said in a detailed memorandum, "Concerns about the cost of living are intense, particularly gas prices in a part of the country where many must drive long distances to work. Moreover, we see real ambivalence about all of the three presidential choices -- each candidate has a genuine opportunity to define the race on his or her own terms. All told, we can expect a real fight for the heartland, because McCain needs a larger margin than he currently enjoys among rural voters to win nationally and Obama needs to find a way to bring Democratic defectors back into the fold."

Berkes said Clinton's strong standing with rural voters was "a stunning upgrade for Clinton, who rated as unpopular as 'illegal aliens' in a similar rural survey done just last year. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have worked hard since then to win over rural voters." Bill Clinton has campaigned heavily in rural areas and called himself the campaign's "designated rural hit man."

The survey has an error margin of plus or minus 3.75 percentage points. It was taken May 13-15 among 682 likely voters outside metropolitan areas in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida. Most of the states are more rural than the national share of 21 percent; in the 2000 census, the rural share was 8.5 percent in Nevada, 11 percent in Florida and 15.5 percent in Colorado. For a longer summary of the results, from the Daily Yonder, click here. For the full poll results, click here.