Support strong, but not monolithic

By Dan Balz June 17 at 10:00 AM

... Even in areas of the country where Trump scored some of his biggest margins, he is a divisive figure — loved by his supporters but disliked by many who voted for Hillary Clinton. Four in 10 adults in rural America disapprove of his job performance, a hefty number for a president still in the early stages of his tenure ...

On Election Night last November, Trump lost America’s cities in a landslide. In the suburbs, he narrowly prevailed over Clinton. But in the 2,332 counties that make up small-town and rural America, he swamped his Democratic rival, winning 60 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 34 percent ...

Trump won 67 percent of the vote among rural Americans who say their values differ from people in big cities. He won 71 percent of those who say the news media disrespect them. He won 74 percent among those who say immigrants are not doing enough to adapt to the American way of life. He captured 79 percent of those rural voters who say that federal government efforts to improve people’s standard of living generally make things worse ...

Concerns about immigration, abuse of public assistance and racial biases resonate especially among Trump’s rural voters. More than 6 in 10 Trump supporters say immigrants are a burden because they take jobs away from American citizens rather than strengthening the country with their hard work and talents. More than 8 in 10 rural Trump voters say it’s more common for government benefits to go to undeserving people rather than for needy people to go without them. And by a more than 3-to-1 margin, rural Trump voters say whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics is a bigger national problem than racial minorities losing out to whites ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rural-america-lifted-trump-to-the-presidency-support-is-strong-but-not-monolithic/2017/06/16/df4f9156-4ac9-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html