Some of these towns have never fully recovered from factories shuttered and jobs shipped overseas. This is a region of small towns and rural attitudes, populated by communities that have felt the devastating effects of deindustrialization. They, more than his well-documented core base, are likely to hold the keys to his political future. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat who represents a northwestern Illinois congressional district carried by Trump, calls these kinds of voters “Trump Triers,” citizens so fed up - for various reasons - that they were willing to take a chance on the unorthodox non-politician. But for others, for whom he was not their first choice during the Republican primaries, Trump was an acquired taste, a stab in the dark, the lesser of two bad choices. In 2016, they all shifted to Trump, with margins swinging 15, 20, 30 or even 40 points between 20.Ĭandidate Trump’s message caught fire almost immediately here it is a bond that for many voters lasts to this day. Itasca County, in north central Minnesota, last voted for a Republican presidential nominee in 1928. In Mower County, where Schminke lives, it was 13 straight, and in Dubuque County, Iowa, it was 14. In half a dozen others, it was 10 in a row. Two dozen of these Midwest counties had backed Democrats for seven straight presidential elections. Most of those nearly four dozen counties in the region are along or adjacent to the Mississippi River.
Almost half of them are in four states in the Upper Midwest: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Nationally, about 100 counties voted Democratic in at least five consecutive presidential elections and then flipped to Trump. The story is told through the voices of the voters - and the degree to which the reservations are now stated more explicitly than they were in early 2017. This report traces the long arc of those changing perceptions, from the initial recognition of Trump as an unforeseen political force to the expectations during the early weeks of his presidency, and then through various chapters of chaos, dysfunction and policy changes. Across the country, most rural counties (shown in pink) have voted Republican consistently, and backed Mitt Romney in 2012.
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