Voters cast their ballots on Sept. 23, 2022, in Minneapolis, Minn.
David Goldman/AP Photo

At least some in the GOP are uneasy about the flagging rural participation in recent contests.

Ryan Girdusky, a Republican political consultant, is concerned enough about the low rural turnout numbers in this year’s special elections that he can rattle them off by memory.

He blamed the results on messaging by the GOP that didn’t appeal to rural voters. Trump’s success in exciting those voters, he said, showed that they are motivated by issues such as crime, immigration, homelessness and education. He pointed to Molinaro’s TV commercials in the New York race that tied crime to Democrats as an example of what not to do.

“They were horrible. And I like Marc Molinaro a lot. But the ad was like the word ‘crime’ across the TV screen,” Girdusky said. “That doesn’t exactly inspire anxiety, fear, motivation, anger, anything. “In recent weeks, though, Girdusky said the picture has improved somewhat, with more aggressive crime ads leading to tightening polls in Senate races.

Interestingly, few strategists in either party said that rural voters had dropped off because Trump isn’t on the ticket this year. Though he isn’t running, they pointed out, the former president has fully immersed himself in the midterms, endorsing candidates and holding rallies in major battleground states. He has also been a constant fixture in the news because of his legal troubles.

Like many others in the GOP, Michael McAdams, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, dismissed the post-Dobbs special election results, saying the races are “rarely predictive of what’s going to happen in generals.”

McAdams also said rural voters have more than enough reasons to come to the polls this November.

“You look at gas prices, that hurts rural voters the most,” he said. “You look at what’s going on with inflation, rural voters tend to be less affluent, and inflation impacts people making less than $100,000 far more than people who make over $100,000.”

The party out of power is virtually always more motivated in midterm elections. And after Democrats enjoyed a summertime high in which they notched legislative victories and watched as gas prices dropped, there are some signs that the political winds are blowing in the GOP’s direction again.

For instance, 60 percent of Americans said inflation is getting worse in a September poll by Yahoo News/YouGov, compared to 51 percent in mid-August. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults in the survey said inflation is a very important issue, while just over half who said the same thing about abortion.

John Couvillon, a pollster who typically works for Republicans, argued that a better gauge of party enthusiasm than special elections is primary turnout. According to his findings, 52 percent of voters in this year’s primaries participated in GOP races, compared to 48 percent who cast ballots in Democratic contests.

The gap between rural and urban turnout was also not as apparent this cycle in primaries in states such as Pennsylvania, which took place before the Dobbs decision, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

One especially good measure of voter mood ahead of November, Couvillon said, is Washington State’s all-party primary, which was held in early August. That’s because it’s a kind of a test-run of the general election, and swings in the primary have usually aligned with the fall results in the last decade.

Democrats performed relatively well in the top-two primary, which took place after Dobbs. But in a cycle that has often sent wildly different signals about what to expect this fall, Washington cast another one: There were no major differences in turnout between rural areas and bigger counties there.

“Even though the special elections are giving the Democrats psychologically a little bit of a lift, to me it’s not the same test environment as, say, an all-party primary in Washington,” said Couvillon.