The question is: will it happen in rural Virginia? We couldn't have a better candidate to attract rural voters.
NPR Morning Edition
Oct. 27
Twelve days before the midterm elections, Republican congressional incumbents are struggling to corral a key voter group -- rural residents. A new bipartisan poll indicates that Democrats now dominate rural voters, a critical part of the Republican base.
The poll was conducted for the non-partisan Center for Rural Strategies, a Kentucky group working to attract attention to rural issues.
Five hundred likely rural voters were surveyed in 41 heavily contested congressional districts and six states with close Senate races. Most of the House districts surveyed have Republican incumbents. Fifty-two per cent of the respondents indicate they'll vote for Democratic congressional candidates; 39 percent say they'll support Republicans.
This is a dramatic shift from a similar poll conducted last month. At that time, the rural voters polled split the congressional vote evenly.
"This is not encouraging information for Republicans," says Bill Greener, the Republican political consultant who supervised and analyzed the bipartisan poll. "And I think that to pretend otherwise is not helpful."