People have this misguided belief that Reagan monolithically won "heartland areas" in a landslide in 1984 because of Muh Reagan Democrats.
Rural voters and small town voters by and large were not in love with Ronald Reagan. His economic policies indisputably hurt them during his presidency. Reagan was the president for Sunbelt suburbanites in California and Florida and the Tristate and Chicagoland suburbs who just wanted their taxes cut indiscriminately and wanted criminals locked up with the keys thrown away.
If you compare Nixon's 1972 landslide to Reagan's 1984 landslide, this becomes even clearer. Nixon's coalition was much more rural and downscale: he overperformed Reagan by leaps and bounds in central Pennsylvania for example. Meanwhile, Reagan did much better than Nixon in places like the San Francisco Bay area and the Northeast.
I thought Reagan was disliked in Appalachia compared to Nixon (in many areas he did worse there in 84 than Nixon did in 68) but I thought Reagan did pretty well in other rural areas
He did well in non-unionised, non-working class rural areas like every republican does. But in even rural counties that were historically Republican but had a working-class base tended much more democratic during the Reagan presidency
Yah In 1988 blue collar voters of all types (outside the south) swung heavily against the GOP.
But in 84 for example Reagan did very well in Western WI , and NW IL as well
Including the south.
They didnt swing that hard inside the south. TN actually swung R.
