Socially liberal rural areas

[Colin]

I would say social liberal rural areas are mostly confined to Vermont, some parts of Southern and Eastern New Hampshire, Western Massachusetts, more rural areas of Rhode Island and some coastal counties in California such as Mendecino and Humboldt. Rural Maine really isn't all that socially liberal and they stand more near the ideological centre than leaning either direction, combine that with ethnic groups, such as French-Canadians, who have been voting Democratic, IIRC, for at least thirty years. The UP, upper Wisconsin, and Minnesota are not exactly as socially conservative as other rural areas in the Midwest and the Plains but most of their focus is on economic populism and I think the average voter in those areas, on the whole, is still more socially conservative than the average American.

As for the ski counties in the Mountain West I wouldn't say that they would count since their socially liberal political leanings come from urban transplants who have moved into those areas in recent years and not to any established trend among the actual rural population of those counties.