Will the rural areas of Dane County eventually trend Republican?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly every time I've been to Dane County I've never understood why the rural areas are D voting too. They look more like Walworth County than Madison.

[Nhoj]

In not knowing much about the area, I imagine people living in these rural areas of college towns and/or deep-blue clusters are those who share the beliefs of their fellow county-dwellers, but simply prefer rural life as a whole. As such, probably not.

Depends, I'd say.  Johnson County, IA (my current residence) has a fairly conservative rural presence, though it's obviously much to the left of most rural areas in the state.

really? Hubbell destroyed Reynolds there 71-27

Was just going by that 2016 precinct map (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html#11.00/41.824/-91.541).  While rural Johnson County is SO much more liberal than your average rural area, the outer areas are lean GOP.  For example, the area around Lake Macbride in Solon went for Trump 49-45% ... then again, this isn't your classic rural area.

I wouldn't really call that area "rural" its a area of exurban commuters to CR and iowa city plus probably some retirees living on the lake. That precinct south west of Iowa city is probably a better example of what you mean its pretty rural down that way from what i remember and its 56% trump.

Dane county is similar in that most of the rural areas the people who work in the city outnumber farmers and random hicks for the most part. Not to forget that farmers in this area have long been more dem than most places.

[DC Al Fine]

The best political alignments are those where the urban/rural divide plays no role in shaping voting patterns one way or the other. So having both rural left, rural right, urban left and urban right areas (like, say, France until recently) would be ideal. Unfortunately, that ship seems to have sailed.

That has never been the case in the US.

Nor in any country of the Anglosphere. The rural areas that were left-wing were small industrial tows, pit villages etc.

I guess there's a bit of question of how one defines "left-wing", but certainly plenty of rural English (let alone Scottish or Welsh) areas that are not industrial/mining communities had, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, nonconforming, anti-clerical and anti-establishment traditions. Far more Liberal than Labour, of course, but the Liberals were "the left" of the 19th century.

And the U.S. has Vermont.

I meant left more as in socialism/new deal politics.

And of course there's a question of how well this can map onto anything resembling our definition of "left" today. A tee-totaling, church going Methodist from the example Tintrlvr gave just doesn't feel that "left" in our current religious-political divides.

[TJ in Oregon]

Well, here'e the trend map from this site for 2012-2016:



It would seem that, for the most part, they are already trending Republican. As would be expected, the exceptions are mostly the areas that are suburbanizing.

While Dane's rurals did trend R, it's not necessarily obvious why all rurals are turning Republican.

In most, it makes obvious sense as rurals are whiter, poorer, less-educated, and more religious than the suburbs, but Dane might be an exception. In Dane, as in the Berkshires and Vermont, it might just be disappointed hard-leftists and Sanders supporters enhancing the Trump margin. This could revert back as early as 2020 if the Democrats nominate someone more suitable to these areas.

I think you overestimate how much like the Berkshires rural Dane is. Yes, it has some Madison commuter presence that drives it to the left, and yes it has Madison media coverage that also drives it to the left; however, it also does have some more in common with the rest of SW Wisconsin than with Madison itself. Unfortunately this site doesn't have the trend map, but most of rural Dane trended right in 2012 as well. Dane County overall even trended R in 2012.

I don't think we'll really see the rural parts of Dane become Republican strongholds by any means, but some of them, especially the northern ones, do vote Republican more often than not and will probably continue to do so.