President Trump’s support declines sharply in rural America

After racking up big wins among rural voters in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump outdid himself in 2024. Nationally, Trump swept 64% of the rural vote to Kamala Harris’ 34%. In the key swing states, all of which he carried, his share of the rural vote ranged from 58% in Michigan to 67% in Pennsylvania.

Since taking office 16 months ago, public approval of Trump’s performance as president has declined sharply. While the reduction in his job approval among the new supporters he attracted in 2024 has been widely discussed, his fall among longtime Republicans in rural areas has gone largely unnoticed. But it has been substantial, and its consequences could be significant for the 2026 midterm election.

Consider the findings from a recently released Fox News analysis. Among rural voters overall, Trump’s net job approval (approval minus disapproval) fell from +20 in early 2025 to -14 in May 2026. Among white rural voters, his net approval fell from +27 to -6. As of now, only 25% of these voters strongly approve of his job performance, compared to 41% who strongly disapprove.

The breakdown by issue suggests that the economy lies at the heart of rural Americans’ retreat from the president. Only 24% of white rural voters think that the condition of the economy is excellent or good, while 77% rate it as fair or poor. Just 16% say their family’s financial situation is better than it was two years ago (near the end of the Biden administration), compared to 49% who say they are worse off. Sixty-four percent of white rural voters think that the cost of living is the most important economic problem they face, and only 30% approve of Trump’s handling of this issue. By a margin of 49% to 39%, they have concluded that his policies will hurt the country in the long run.

These sentiments are grounded in real experiences in rural communities. In 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau, farm bankruptcies rose by 46%, a figure to which the president’s policies contributed significantly. His tariffs reduced demand for U.S. agricultural products, especially soybeans, while increasing the cost of key inputs such as farm equipment and fertilizer. His immigration crackdown made it harder for ranchers, farmers, and milk producers to find the workers they needed. The war with Iran sent the price of gasoline and diesel fuel soaring. Last year alone, 15,000 farms closed, and the pace of bankruptcies has accelerated to 70% so far this year.

The rural economy is more than agriculture, of course. Many small rural towns depend on a single small manufacturing plant, and the news has not been good. While President Trump promised that his tariffs would jumpstart a manufacturing revival, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs has declined by 77,000 since the beginning of his second term.

These trends are not entirely new, of course. Manufacturing has struggled to reverse the massive employment losses the sector experienced between 2001 and 2010, and the squeeze on agricultural producers has lasted for most of the past 15 years. Since 2011, the prices farmers must pay to produce their crops have increased by 50% while the prices they receive for them have fallen by 4%. But rural Americans expected change for the better under Trump, and they have not experienced it.

None of this means that larger numbers of rural Americans will cast their ballots for Democrats in this November’s midterm elections. Still, there are encouraging signs for Democrats in heavily rural Iowa, which Donald Trump carried by 13 points in 2024. Although Republicans now hold all of the state’s four-seat delegation in the House of Representatives, analysts rate two of the four as toss-ups this year, along with the state’s gubernatorial contest, and Democrats have reasons for hope in the Senate race as well.

Overall, rural Americans’ sentiments do not suggest a high level of enthusiasm for Republican House and Senate candidates, and many of them could choose to stay home on Election Day—bad news for a party that depends on running up huge margins among the nearly 1 in 5 American voters who live outside the country’s cities and suburbs.