Rural voters were slightly less likely than urban voters to support former President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, a Daily Yonder analysis shows.
The difference between Trump’s rural and urban support was slim but indicates that in New Hampshire, the rural Republican electorate did not skew disproportionately toward the former president compared to urban voters.
Trump won the statewide contest by 11 points (54%-43%) over Nikki Haley, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor.
The former president won both rural (nonmetropolitan) and metropolitan counties, but the margin in rural areas was slightly smaller. Trump earned 53.4% of the vote in rural counties, versus 55.9% in the state’s three urban counties – a spread of 2.5 points.
Haley won 44.7% of the vote in rural counties, versus 42.7% of the vote in urban counties.
Although Trump’s margin of victory was slightly smaller in rural New Hampshire overall, his largest margin of victory came in rural Coos County, the northernmost county in the state.
Trump secured 65% of the vote in Coos, beating Haley by a 28-point margin. Support for Trump among voters in rural Sullivan County, in the southwest, rivaled that of Coos County. Sixty-four percent of Sullivan County voters also cast their ballot for Trump.
Haley performed the best in rural Grafton County, which borders Coos County to the south and is home to Dartmouth College. Fifty-two percent of Grafton County voters supported Haley over Trump on Tuesday night. Grafton was the only county out of New Hampshire’s 10 counties where Haley beat Trump.
Methodology
The Daily Yonder’s analysis of the rural vote is based on the 2013 Office of Management and Budget Metropolitan Statistical Areas definitions. Counties in metropolitan areas are classified as urban, and counties not in a metropolitan area (nonmetropolitan) are classified as rural.
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