Rural voters stay split on climate change and government action; some in day-to-day trenches can't see big picture

Near the Mississippi River, Tower Rock is now accessible via foot. Rural
voters remain divided on cause of drought. (Photo by Jeff Roberson, AP)

As much of the nation completes a third year of drought, farmers remain conflicted on the degree to which climate change is to blame and whether Washington can be relied on to assist, reports Nuha Dolby of The Associated Press.

Raquel Krach is a rice farmer in the Sacramento Valley who told Dolby she planted considerably less rice because of the drought. Dolby reports, "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." Kraus said, "Everyone is very clear on [the fact] that there’s no water and that there’s a drought. Whether they attribute that to climate change is different.”

An AP poll "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," Dolby reports. "About three-quarters 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."

While extreme weather has pummeled agriculture, Johnathan Hladik, the policy director at the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs, told Dolby that the nature of much work rural people do makes looking at the global scale difficult: “Farmers are experiencing climate change in a much different way than many more urban people do. It’s in every part of their job. It’s almost like it’s a day-to-day battle. You’re in the trenches every single day and it’s really hard to step back and look at it big-picture-size."

Sarah Jaynes, executive director of the Rural Democracy Initiative, which provides funding to groups that support progressive policies in rural areas, told Dolby that 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.”