Trump’s Hold on Rural America Is Key to His Resilience

Now Trump appears poised to win this county Monday and claim victory in Iowa’s caucuses, powered largely by his overwhelming support among rural voters who see him as the best candidate to advance a populist conservative agenda. That pattern has played out in similar places across the country, helping explain why Trump has a hold over the Republican Party and is the nomination front-runner.

Trump arrives at the caucuses that kick off 2024 nominating contests with baggage that would likely stop any other politician. He faces 91 criminal charges related to everything from his handling of classified documents to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He has used language that echoes Adolf Hitler. And he led his party to election losses in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

In Hancock County, none of that matters to many GOP voters. The fact that so many damning allegations against Trump have been aired is a strength, they say, because it suggests he’s unlikely to be derailed by a new tarnishing revelation. Many GOP voters here think Trump is most likely to achieve their ultimate goal—defeating President Biden—because he is a proven commodity and ties or beats the incumbent in general election polls.

“His track record speaks for itself and I think we need him back to get the economy fixed," said Osmund “Bud" Jermeland, a 65-year-old farm equipment sales manager who is the county’s GOP chairman. “There’s going to be a pretty strong Trump turnout in this county."

Picking Trump, in Jermeland’s view, is like drinking Coca-Cola. You might give another soda a try, in the way voters early last year showed interest in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after his 2022 landslide re-election victory. But at the end of the day, if you like Coke, you stick with Coke.

Jermeland, whose leadership role calls for him to remain neutral in the contest, said DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are considered “members of the Republican establishment" and not as trusted as Trump to govern as an outsider.

The most recent Wall Street Journal poll showed Trump had the support of 71% of rural Republican primary voters, well above his backing of 59% among all GOP primary voters. One reason is that rural America has a higher concentration of non-college-educated white voters, a demographic that Trump helped pull into the Republican Party when he first sought the presidency in 2016. Rural areas are also aging faster than the rest of the U.S., and Trump outperformed his last two Democratic opponents among Americans age 65 and older.

Trump won in 2016 despite garnering nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, in part because he won less-populous states that the Electoral College gives a disproportionate say to in presidential elections. He secured close to two-thirds of the rural vote nationwide—about a fifth of the electorate—that year and in his 2020 election loss.

His hold on rural voters could help decide who wins the general election and margins could matter. If Democrats keep Trump from racking up the gains he had in rural America in 2016 and 2020, it could undermine his ability to carry battlegrounds like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

His strength with rural voters hasn’t been replicated among the centrist suburban voters who decide general elections, which is why Haley still makes the case she’d be the better candidate in November and why Democrats still have hope Biden can win another term despite poor poll numbers.

In Hancock County, a north-central Iowa enclave where grain elevators are the tallest structures on the horizon, voters were once skeptical of Trump, a thrice-married Manhattanite with virtually no rural life experience. Eight years ago, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas scored his largest vote share in Hancock among the state’s 99 counties, while also recording the biggest gap between his share and Trump’s, 45% to 19%.

Trump went on to win 71% of the county’s general election vote in 2020. Residents say farmers and small-business owners strongly relate to Trump’s business background. They also think the former president’s wealth allows him to fight the establishment and Washington better than his rivals.

“We respond to Trump because he has had to make payroll and build businesses," said John Golnick, a 70-year-old resident who has worked as a truck driver and in other jobs. “It takes risks, a lot of nerve and a lot of work."

Golnick, who plans to back Trump at the caucuses, said he thinks all of the investigations the former president faces are fake. “He’s been investigated in so many different ways, if there was something damaging they would have found it four or five years ago," he said.

Republican Damon Quandt, a 31-year-old bank lending officer, had initially planned to back someone other than Trump in the caucuses—perhaps DeSantis—because there are aspects of Trump’s personality he doesn’t like.

He now expects to vote for Trump, in part because at some point, he said, DeSantis stopped looking like he could win. Quandt said he worries that if Republicans nominate someone other than Trump, the former president’s most ardent supporters wouldn’t get behind that person, while he expects most of those backing other GOP candidates would ultimately fall in line behind Trump.

“I can like enough of him to get on board to help make sure the next president can be a Republican," he said.

Unlike many Republicans interviewed in the county, Quandt thinks Trump lost the 2020 election. But he doesn’t believe polls that show Haley is the strongest GOP candidate against Biden because he thinks potential Democratic attacks against her have yet to surface. “Everything about Trump is already out there and he’s still leading," Quandt said.

Hancock County hasn’t backed a Democrat in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996. Republicans outnumber Democrats more than three to one, state data shows.

Doug Thompson, a 75-year-old farmer in Hancock County who is a centrist Democrat and has worked professionally for both Democratic and Republican administrations in Iowa, said he often shakes his head when he sees his neighbors rallying around Trump.

“It’s a cult of personality out here at this point," he said.

The county is less educated than Iowa as a whole, with census data showing just one in five of those age 25 and older having a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with about one in three for the state overall and 38% nationally. Its median age is 44, compared with 39 for both Iowa and the nation. Roughly nine in 10 residents are non-Hispanic white.

Dennis Guth, a farmer and state senator who represents the area, said he’s a DeSantis supporter but expects Trump to win Hancock County. “People see him as a successful businessman who knows how to get things done and negotiate," he said.

Most of those interviewed in the county, which has a higher share of evangelicals than the statewide average, said they don’t like Trump’s personality and proclivity for name calling. But they also talk about Christian forgiveness when asked about his mistakes before and after he was president.

“Many Christians in the community are upset and frustrated with some of Trump’s personal choices, either in his speech or in his lifestyle choices," said Brian Lund, a 42-year-old pastor at the Zion Evangelical & Reformed Church. “Others are willing to overlook those."

Lund, who declined to say whom he will support in the caucuses, said he thinks Trump has such strength in the area because people think the former president’s wealth allows him to take on the establishment and Washington. “They want to see someone fighting for their interests," he said.

Some of Trump’s challengers have tried to win over voters here by championing local issues. Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has campaigned extensively in Iowa as part of his long-shot bid, has been to Hancock County at least twice.

In a late December visit, Ramaswamy opposed the use of eminent domain for a proposed pipeline that would cross the county, a project that’s unpopular with many farmers. It would transport carbon-dioxide emissions from ethanol and other plants, liquefied under pressure, to sites where the greenhouse gas would be sequestered underground.

Alan Bush, a 64-year-old loan officer for a local bank, said he thinks Ramaswamy will pick up some support in the county because he’s expressed vocal opposition to the pipeline, unlike other candidates in the race. Bush, however, plans to caucus for Trump.

“He doesn’t owe anyone favors and he’s proven himself," he said. “I believe the man absolutely loves this country and wants to do right by it."

Likely participants in the state’s GOP caucuses view Trump as the best Republican candidate to handle the economy, with more than two-thirds saying in an Iowa Poll in December that he would do the best job on that key topic.

Florence “Sis" Greiman, a 60-year-old farmer and county commissioner, said she is leaning toward supporting Trump. “He did a lot of good things for farmers and rural people," Greiman said, highlighting Trump’s actions on trade, his efforts to push for deregulation and lower agricultural input costs during his tenure. “He understood negotiations."

Other business leaders see a president whose economic policies had unintended consequences. Dave Zrostlik, the president of a company that builds service trucks, said Trump’s tariffs immediately jacked up the cost of the raw steel his company relies on and made it harder to compete with European firms.

Zrostlik, whose company employs more than 500 people in the county, said he is leaning toward supporting Haley instead of Trump because he’s “not a big fan of the person that he has become."

Cindy Wacker, a 51-year-old who has home-schooled her four children and lives south of Garner, said she didn’t trust Trump enough to support him in 2016 but gave him her vote in 2020. She wouldn’t be disappointed if Trump won the nomination, based on his border policies and appointment of conservative justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

Still, she said she can’t bring herself to back Trump and would prefer to see DeSantis as the nominee. “DeSantis does a lot of the things Trump talks about, but without all the drama," she said. “Trump has plenty of support, so I figure I will vote for my favorite."

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com