Rural regional hubs, not metropolitan but micropolitan, are key political battleground as parties look to 2022 midterms

Suburbs have been America's main political battleground lately, but another sort of battleground has developed: exurbs, smaller cities that are outside metropolitan areas but aren't really rural. The Census Bureau has a classification for them: micropolitan, with a core city of 10,000 to 49,999. "Small-city America" is what the Democratic Party considers its "new frontier," reports Thomas Beaumont, an Iowa-based national political correspondent for The Associated Press.

"As Democrats continue to lose votes in small towns, they've seen clear gains in regional hubs that dot stretches of rural America," Beaumont writes, noting that many of the 60 or so counties that flipped from Trump to Biden in the 2020 election "were places anchored by a mid-sized or small city that is trending Democratic," usually with a university and/or medical center that draw "educated and racially diverse newcomers. Their economies are better than average. And in 2020, their voters showed a bipartisan streak — voting for Biden for president and Republicans down-ballot in large numbers."

Beaumont's object example is Mankato, Minn., pop. 40,000 and a 37-year-old registered nurse at a branch of the Mayo Clinic: "Mary McGaw grew up in a Republican home on the rural prairie of south central Minnesota. But as she moved from her tiny town of Amboy to the nearest city of Mankato to study nursing, her politics migrated too. McGaw was moved by the plight of underinsured and became concerned about the viability of safety programs. She cast her vote for Democrat Joe Biden in November, and nearly 3 months later, she is pleased with how hard the new president is fighting for his priorities." She told Beaumont, "He's trying to get something done, even though there's pushback from all sides."