90% of rural counties increased Republican support in 2016; rural white females supported Trump

Rural voters have increased
support for Republicans
since 2004 (Post graphic)

The presidential election showed an increasing difference among rural Republican and urban Democratic counties, Lazaro Gamio reports for The Washington Post. Of the 1,508 small counties—those with 25,000 or fewer people—1,362 voted more Republican in 2016 than in 2004.

"In counties with fewer than 100,000 people—which make up 80 percent of counties in the country but contain only about 20 percent of the population—9 out of 10 voted more Republican than they did in 2004," Gamio writes.

Of the 137 urban counties with 500,000 or more residents, 112 counties voted more Democratic in 2016 than in 2004, Gamio writes. In medium-sized counties (25,000 to 100,000 people) 878 of the 1,012 counties leaned more Republican, and in large counties (100,000 to 500,000) 260 of the 453 voted more Republican. (Post graphic below: urban, large and medium-sized counties)

Exit polls also showed that Donald Trump's disparaging remarks about women did little to deter rural white female voters from casting ballots for him, Rich Morin reports for the Pew Research Center. An NBC News poll showed that 54 percent of all women voted for Hillary Clinton, but Trump won among white women, 53 to 43, and held a significant advantage among rural white women, 62 to 34. Among white men, Trump beat Clinton 63 to 31, and among rural white men, 72 to 24.