Takeaways: What a new AP-KFF survey reveals about rural American voters
Sep 23, 2026, 3:23 AM
Asunta Washington, 38, poses for a photo in New Braunfels, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll from The Associated Press in partnership with KFF finds that about half of rural American voters believe the economy is worse off now than when President Donald Trump returned to office, pointing to economic frustration among a key group that has backed Trump and other Republicans in recent elections.
The poll of more than 2,000 rural registered voters found that costs of groceries, gas and healthcare are among the top pain points for rural voters. They are also more likely than voters overall to say they are worried about being able to afford groceries or gas.
Rural Americans skew Republican and historically have been an instrumental voting bloc for Trump. The findings suggest that many rural voters haven’t turned against Trump but that they also largely don’t think he has delivered on his economic promises. While rural voters seem unlikely to support Democrats on a large scale, Trump and the Republican Party could face challenges with them in November.
The full story can be read here. Here are the takeaways:
As the election approaches, only about 4 in 10 rural voters surveyed approve of Trump’s performance on the economy. Roughly 6 in 10 disapprove.
They rate him similarly on his handling of the Iran war, an entanglement that has proved expensive for the U.S. and increased oil and gas prices. And rural voters rank pocketbook concerns and fraud in government programs higher among the things they want to hear about from politicians than other perennial issues, such as gun policy and abortion policy.
In the poll, about three-quarters of rural voters rated the cost of living in their communities as “only fair” or “poor.”
Rural Americans, who have consistently lower wages than those who live in suburban and metro areas, have been hurting economically for decades, according to Tim Slack, a professor of sociology at Louisiana State University and co-author of the book “Rural and Small-Town America.”
“Many folks are connecting the cost-of-living crisis to many of the Trump administration’s policy choices: the war in Iran, tariffs, trade wars,” he said. “None of those things are going to bring down prices at the pump or the local Walmart.”
At the same time, about half of rural voters approve of Trump’s job performance, more than among U.S. adults overall in separate AP-NORC polling.
Rural Republicans do have a brighter economic perspective than rural Democrats or independents, particularly about the U.S. as a whole, according to the survey. About 6 in 10 rural Republican voters say Trump has improved the national economy, compared with roughly 2 in 10 independents and fewer than 1 in 10 Democrats.
But only 45% of rural Republican voters say Trump has made their local economies better off. About 1 in 4 say there are fewer good-paying jobs where they live than five years ago.
The AP-KFF poll found that rural voters overall don’t perceive much positive impact from the Trump administration’s healthcare policies even as they have been a top priority for Republican leaders, who have promoted efforts to lower drug costs and touted a $50 billion rural health program.
Only 17% of the voters said the Trump administration’s healthcare policies have had a “positive impact” on their healthcare costs, while 41% said they’ve had “no impact” and another 41% said they’ve had a “negative impact.”
A year after the passage of the Rural Health Transformation Program, more than 8 in 10 rural voters said they’d heard either “a little” or “nothing at all” about the health fund. About 6 in 10 said they had heard nothing, according to the survey.
When asked which political party they trusted to do a better job of handling issues such as the cost of healthcare or the cost of living, rural voters tended to side with their own party.
The finding signals that Democratic candidates are more likely to benefit from rural Republicans staying home this November than from them voting across party lines in large numbers.
Rural Republicans are more ambivalent about their party’s ability to handle key healthcare issues, compared with Democrats. About 8 in 10 Democratic voters say they trust the Democrats to address healthcare costs, while closer to 6 in 10 Republican voters say the same of the Republicans.
Trump’s approval among rural voters, while higher than among U.S. adults overall, is down slightly, from 56% approval in a similar question asked in a 2017 KFF-Washington Post survey.
Many rural voters also don’t think the major parties or the president respect people like them.
About half, 48%, of rural voters say the GOP respects people like them “a lot” or “some,” while 45% of rural voters say this about Trump and 37% say this about the Democratic Party.
This year’s competitive elections feature key Senate races in states including Ohio, Michigan and Maine, all of which have large rural populations. In close races, Democrats may have a chance to “show up and give a message that rural people might find appealing,” said Nicholas Jacobs, a political scientist at Colby College and co-author of the book “The Rural Voter.”
“But it’s nothing more and it’s nothing less than that — an opportunity,” Jacobs said. “And time and time again, Democrats have shown a certain proclivity for not seizing that opportunity.”
___
The poll of 2,241 U.S. adults registered to vote in rural areas of the country was conducted Aug. 12-24, 2026, using a sample drawn from the probability-based SSRS Opinion Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In collaboration with the AP, KFF researchers worked to design the survey sample and questionnaire, analyze and report findings.
___
This report is a collaboration between The Associated Press and KFF Health News. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.
