It's easy to stereotype voters, especially rural ones

A report from the Pew Research Center smashes political stereotypes and clarifies voting trends, David Byler writes for The Washington Post: "Its validated voter survey, which uses official state records to check whether respondents really voted, dispels five common political misconceptions." Here are Byler's data-bites, boiled down for easy digestion:

Chart by David Byler, Washington Post, from Pew Research data

Republicans aren't mainly rural. Democrats aren't mainly urban. Every electoral map has deep-blue dots — major metro areas — surrounded by bright-red rural areas. As a result, pundits often treat Democratic voters as if they are stuffed into a single Manhattan apartment while Republicans are spread among a grid of farms that span the rest of the nation. . . . Democrats fare best in neighborhoods that are close to the city center; while Republicans thrive in exurbs and small metros. But despite how some maps may look, suburbanites — not small-town farmers or big-city baristas — are the core of both parties.

Religious Democrats and secular Republicans are both common. Democrats typically represent the most secular voters: They consistently win almost 90 percent of self-identified atheists, along with roughly 80 percent of agnostics. Republicans, by contrast, routinely take more than 80 percent of the White evangelical vote. . . . But that doesn't mean one party believes in God and the other doesn't. Most Democrats are Christians, and a solid chunk of Republicans claim no religious affiliation. . . . Republican politicians still represent the interests of the religious right, especially on abortion and LGBTQ rights. . . . Both parties are home to a mix of devout and secular voters.

Democrats aren't young. Both parties are old. It's true that young voters tend to prefer Democrats while their parents and grandparents are more likely to vote GOP. In the 2022, House elections, 68 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 backed a Democrat, and 56 percent of seniors voted for a Republican. But older voters rule both parties. In 2022, 6 in 10 Democrats and 7 in 10 Republicans were 50 or older. . . . Only 1 in 4 American adults are between ages 19 and 34, and turnout among young voters is always lower than other age cohorts.

Both parties rely on White college graduates — not just Democrats. When Donald Trump took over the GOP, many white-collar Republicans defected to the Democratic Party. But the magnitude of that shift has been greatly exaggerated. In 2022, only 52 percent of White college graduates voted for Democrats, and 47 percent favored Republicans. The result: Both parties relied on White college graduates for roughly a third of their votes.

The Hispanic vote is not the GOP's only route to victory. In 2020, Trump made substantial gains with Hispanic voters. Since then, political analysts have spent more time and effort analyzing Hispanic Republicans than almost any other group. . . . Only 1 in 10 voters self-identify as Hispanic. Republicans could very well win in 2024 by building on recent gains with the White working-class and Asian American voters, regaining recently lost college-educated suburbanites, or finally making inroads with Black voters. These groups, which make up the other 90 percent of the electorate, deserve attention, too.