Christian Nationalism and Rural America
Christian Nationalism and Rural America
Christian nationalism in rural America refers to the intersection of beliefs that the United States should have a privileged Christian national identity with the distinctive political, religious, economic, and cultural conditions found in many rural communities. Research in the uploaded material indicates that rural residence by itself does not automatically produce Christian-nationalist attitudes. Rather, Christian nationalism often overlaps with evangelical Protestant identity, Republican partisanship, rural consciousness, racial attitudes, perceptions of cultural displacement, distrust of institutions, and concern about changes in American society.
The relationship between rural America and Christian nationalism is therefore more complicated than a simple rural-versus-urban division. Rural communities vary substantially by region, race, denomination, economic structure, history, and political outlook. Studies repeatedly distinguish rural identity from evangelical identity and Christian nationalism, even though these identities frequently overlap politically.
Rural Identity and the Rural–Urban Divide
A large body of research describes the emergence of a widening political divide between rural and metropolitan America. Rural voters have become increasingly Republican over recent decades, while many metropolitan areas have moved toward the Democratic Party. This geographic polarization reflects several interconnected processes, including economic restructuring, educational differences, migration, religious affiliation, racial composition, cultural conflict, and national partisan sorting.
Researchers studying "rural consciousness" find that many rural residents believe their communities receive less political attention, economic investment, and cultural respect than urban areas. Perceptions that rural people are misunderstood or looked down upon can become politically important even when individual economic hardship is not the primary concern.
Studies of place-based resentment suggest that symbolic concerns are often particularly influential. Some rural residents perceive urban elites, national institutions, universities, government agencies, and the media as dismissive of rural values and ways of life. These attitudes can encourage support for candidates who portray themselves as defenders of rural communities against distant political or cultural elites.
At the same time, research cautions against treating rural America as politically uniform. Rural Black voters, rural Democrats, religious minorities, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and politically moderate or progressive rural residents can differ sharply from the image of a uniformly conservative countryside.
Religion and Rural Political Identity
Religion remains an important institution in many rural communities, especially where churches serve not only as places of worship but also as centers of social interaction, civic life, mutual assistance, and political discussion.
Research on the religious foundations of the urban-rural divide suggests that religious importance, Protestant identity, and evangelical affiliation are associated with some forms of rural political consciousness. Conservative Christian congregations can provide social networks through which political ideas circulate and become connected to community identity.
However, rural identity and evangelical identity are not interchangeable. Experimental research shows that Americans perceive a rural candidate and an evangelical candidate as carrying different social and political meanings. Likewise, studies find substantial religious diversity within rural America, including mainline Protestants, Catholics, Black Protestants, religiously unaffiliated residents, and Christians who actively oppose Christian nationalism.
This distinction is important because Christian nationalism is not simply another term for Christianity, evangelicalism, or rural religiosity. Researchers generally describe it as a political and cultural framework that links Christianity to ideas about American national identity, political authority, social hierarchy, and the proper role of religion in public life.
White Christian Nationalism
A substantial portion of the literature focuses specifically on white Christian nationalism. Researchers have connected it to beliefs that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that Christianity should occupy a privileged position in government and public institutions.
Studies also examine relationships between Christian nationalism and white racial identity, perceptions of anti-white discrimination, immigration attitudes, demographic anxiety, and concerns about declining Christian cultural dominance.
Several studies suggest that Christian nationalism can operate as a form of in-group protection. When Christianity, whiteness, or traditional American identity is perceived as threatened, Christian-nationalist beliefs can become connected with opposition to social and demographic change.
This does not mean that all Christian nationalists are white or that all white rural Christians support Christian nationalism. The uploaded research specifically includes work showing that Christian-nationalist attitudes exist among more diverse groups and that rural residence alone is not a reliable predictor of such beliefs.
Economic Change and Institutional Decline
Economic restructuring provides another important part of the rural context.
Many rural communities have experienced population loss, agricultural consolidation, deindustrialization, declining manufacturing employment, hospital closures, shrinking newspapers, fewer locally owned businesses, and weakening civic institutions. Researchers have documented growing economic differences between prosperous metropolitan regions and communities that have lost employment, population, or institutional capacity.
These changes can reinforce perceptions that national economic and political institutions have abandoned rural communities.
Studies of Appalachia, the Midwest, the Great Plains, and other rural regions describe communities in which churches remain among the strongest surviving institutions. In such environments, religious organizations can acquire greater cultural importance as other institutions decline.
Some scholars argue that Christian-nationalist political messages can become especially powerful when they connect religious identity with broader feelings of loss, displacement, institutional decline, or resentment toward metropolitan elites.
The literature nevertheless cautions against reducing Christian nationalism to economic distress. Research on status threat and cultural resentment suggests that perceived loss of cultural standing can sometimes predict political behavior more strongly than personal economic hardship.
Rural Resentment and Cultural Status
Rural political behavior is frequently interpreted through the concept of rural resentment or rural consciousness.
This perspective emphasizes perceptions that rural residents are ignored by government, deprived of resources, and culturally disrespected by people living in cities. Rural respondents in several studies express the belief that urban residents misunderstand rural life and that political decision-makers devote disproportionate attention to metropolitan concerns.
These attitudes can reinforce broader narratives about cultural conflict.
Christian-nationalist rhetoric can fit within this framework by portraying conservative Christians as another group whose traditions, values, and social status are allegedly being displaced. The resulting political narrative may combine rural grievance, religious grievance, and national identity into a broader perception that "people like us" are losing control of the country.
However, studies questioning the concept of universal "rural rage" emphasize that resentment varies considerably among rural populations. Party identification, race, religion, education, and regional history all influence political attitudes.
Christian Nationalism and Donald Trump
Research on Christian nationalism has repeatedly found associations with support for Donald Trump.
Studies of the 2016 presidential election concluded that Christian nationalism predicted support for Trump even after researchers accounted for several measures of religiosity, economic dissatisfaction, racial attitudes, and political affiliation.
Subsequent research found similar relationships in the 2020 and 2024 elections. Christian nationalism has been associated with attitudes toward immigration, racial and cultural change, national identity, political leadership, and perceptions that traditional American society is under threat.
Rural voters also became an increasingly important part of Trump's electoral coalition. Yet rural identity, evangelical identity, Republican identification, and Christian nationalism should not be treated as the same variable. The literature generally portrays them as overlapping political constituencies rather than identical groups.
State-level research likewise finds that areas with relatively high Christian-nationalist support often overlap geographically with heavily rural portions of the South, Appalachia, Great Plains, Midwest, and Mountain West.
Race, Immigration, and Demographic Change
Race and demographic change are recurring themes in research on Christian nationalism.
Studies have found relationships between Christian nationalism and fears involving immigration, declining white or Christian demographic dominance, perceptions of racial threat, and resistance to multicultural definitions of American identity.
Some scholarship argues that Christian nationalism can merge religious and racial boundaries by defining an idealized national in-group that is simultaneously Christian, culturally conservative, and historically associated with white American identity.
Research on rural politics also shows that racial identity influences rural political behavior. The political attitudes of Black rural voters differ substantially from those of white rural voters, demonstrating why geography cannot be separated from race.
Demographic transformation can also influence perceptions of status loss. Research on the 2016 election found evidence that perceived threats to dominant social status played an important role in political behavior, sometimes more strongly than direct economic hardship.
Gender, Family, and Social Hierarchy
Christian nationalism is also associated in the literature with attitudes toward gender, family structure, education, and authority.
Researchers have examined relationships between Christian nationalism and patriarchal social arrangements, traditional gender expectations, pronatalist politics, masculinity, parental authority, and conservative approaches to children's education.
Some studies find that Christian-nationalist beliefs correlate with support for stronger parental control over schools and children's upbringing. These attitudes intersect with contemporary political disputes over school curricula, sex education, LGBTQ issues, book restrictions, and parental-rights campaigns.
Such issues can become especially politically salient in smaller communities where churches, schools, local government, and civic organizations are closely interconnected.
Christian Nationalism and Democratic Institutions
Another major area of research concerns Christian nationalism's relationship to democracy.
Studies included in the uploaded material associate stronger Christian-nationalist beliefs with greater willingness to tolerate restrictions on voting, extraordinary executive authority, selective application of civil liberties, or political actions that weaken democratic norms.
Research has found associations between Christian nationalism and beliefs that voter fraud is widespread, that voting should be more restricted, or that political participation should be limited to people perceived as legitimate members of the national community.
Other studies link Christian nationalism with authoritarian attitudes and willingness to support leaders who disregard constitutional restraints during perceived national emergencies.
Research concerning the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol also examines the presence of Christian symbols, white identity, nationalism, conspiratorial thinking, perceived victimhood, and claims of divine political authority.
These findings have led some scholars to argue that Christian nationalism can become especially consequential when political conflicts are framed as existential struggles between a supposedly Christian nation and threatening outsiders.
Churches and Political Mobilization
Churches have historically played important roles in American political organization.
Research on the Christian Right shows that conservative religious political mobilization developed through local congregations, radio networks, Christian schools, activist organizations, pastors, business networks, and community institutions long before Christian nationalism became a widely used academic or journalistic term.
In rural communities, churches may have particular organizational significance because fewer alternative civic institutions remain.
Sermons and congregational cultures can influence how believers interpret political events. Research analyzing sermon rhetoric finds that evangelical preaching sometimes contains themes involving cultural threat, elites, morality, and national decline that parallel conservative political messaging.
Yet churches do not speak with a single political voice. Conservative pastors differ among themselves over nationalism, political violence, partisan activism, and the proper relationship between Christianity and government.
Rural Christian Opposition to Christian Nationalism
One of the important themes in the source material is that Christian nationalism does not represent all rural Christians.
Reporting from rural Minnesota, for example, describes Lutheran clergy and other Christians openly organizing against Christian-nationalist movements.
Other research documents politically moderate and Democratic evangelicals who maintain conservative religious identities while rejecting Republican political alignment or Christian-nationalist ideology.
Large numbers of Americans categorized by researchers as Christian-nationalism "rejecters" or "skeptics" also live in states where Christian-nationalist support is comparatively high.
This opposition demonstrates the danger of treating rural Christianity as synonymous with Christian nationalism. Rural congregations can include people with sharply different theological and political understandings of Christianity's relationship to democracy and government.
Regional Variation
Christian nationalism is unevenly distributed across the United States.
PRRI state-level surveys identify comparatively high levels of Christian-nationalist support in portions of the Deep South, Appalachia, Great Plains, Midwest, and Mountain West.
States such as Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, and Wyoming have appeared among states with relatively elevated levels of support in different survey years.
Many of these states contain substantial rural populations, but state-level correlations cannot establish that rural residence itself causes Christian-nationalist beliefs.
Regional histories involving race, denominational traditions, economic development, migration, political institutions, and party realignment also influence these geographic patterns.
Moreover, significant numbers of Christian-nationalism skeptics and opponents exist even in states where support is relatively high.
Appalachia and the Rural South
Appalachia and the rural South receive particular attention in scholarship examining economic transformation, religious institutions, political realignment, and rural identity.
Historical studies describe how evangelical institutions, migration, conservative religious networks, racial politics, and anti-government ideology helped shape the modern Christian Right.
Contemporary discussions of Christian nationalism in Appalachia often emphasize the interaction between economic decline, disappearing institutions, distrust of government, church influence, and cultural narratives about national decline.
Research on Southern political realignment likewise documents the gradual movement of many rural Southern counties from Democratic dominance toward Republican identification.
These developments created political environments in which conservative Christianity and Republican identity increasingly overlapped, providing an important historical setting for contemporary Christian nationalism.
Rural America Is Not Politically Homogeneous
Perhaps the clearest caution emerging from the combined literature is that rural America should not be treated as a single political or religious culture.
Rural communities differ substantially in racial composition, religious affiliation, economic structure, education, migration patterns, industrial history, and political traditions.
Studies of Black rural voters, white evangelical Democrats, religious minorities, and politically mixed rural communities demonstrate substantial internal diversity.
Researchers also note that definitions of "rural" vary among the Census Bureau, USDA, scholars, and polling organizations. A small town adjacent to a metropolitan region can be politically and economically very different from an isolated agricultural county hundreds of miles from a major city.
Christian nationalism therefore represents one important political current within rural America rather than an ideology that defines rural America as a whole.
Conclusion
The research on Christian nationalism and rural America describes an overlapping network of religious, geographic, racial, economic, and political identities rather than a simple relationship between rural residence and Christian nationalism.
Many rural communities have experienced economic restructuring, population loss, declining institutions, demographic change, and increasing political distance from major metropolitan areas. At the same time, conservative Protestant churches remain influential institutions in parts of rural America, and white evangelical Protestants have become increasingly aligned with the Republican Party.
Christian nationalism can draw upon these conditions by connecting Christian identity with narratives about national decline, cultural displacement, political resentment, demographic change, and the restoration of a supposedly traditional America.
Yet the evidence also shows significant diversity. Rural residents are not uniformly evangelical, Republican, white, conservative, or Christian nationalist. Rural Christians themselves frequently disagree over the relationship between faith and political power.
The strongest interpretation of the available research therefore treats rural Christian nationalism as part of a broader transformation in American political geography. It emerges where religious identity, rural consciousness, partisan polarization, racial and cultural anxiety, institutional decline, and contested understandings of American national identity intersect.
Understanding Christian nationalism in rural America consequently requires examining not only religion, but also place, race, class, political institutions, economic restructuring, demographic change, and competing visions of what the United States is and who legitimately belongs within it.
Christian Nationalism in Rural Communities
1. | Ellie Silverman | The Washington Sun | September 15, 2026
When Accusations of Christian Nationalism Tear a Small Town Apart. Reporting from Battle Ground, Washington, examines tensions involving churches, businesses, political leadership, and accusations of organized Christian-nationalist influence.
2. | James R. G. Kirk and Levi G. Allen | Social Science Quarterly | April 4, 2026
Religion and America's Urban-Rural Divide. The evidence underlying this growing research field suggests that rural identity, evangelical identity, Republican identification, economic grievance, and Christian nationalism overlap but remain analytically distinct phenomena; understanding rural Christian nationalism requires studying how these factors interact rather than treating rural residence itself as the cause.
3. | Karen Tolkkinen | Minnesota Star Tribune | March 15, 2026
Christian Nationalists Are Rising in Rural Minnesota, but They Don't Speak for All Christians. Rural Lutheran clergy and other Christians organize against Christian nationalism, illustrating substantial religious opposition within rural communities.
4. | Echoes of Appalachia | Echoes of Appalachia | October 6, 2025
God's Country or Man's Cage? Inside the Silent Rise of Christian Nationalism in Rural Appalachia. The article connects economic decline, institutional loss, church influence, distrust of government, and Christian-nationalist rhetoric in Appalachian communities.
5. | Leland L. Glenna | New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education | 2025
White Christian Nationalism in the Rural United States. Glenna directly examines the prominence of white Christian nationalism in rural America and connects it to economic restructuring, declining local journalism, conservative Christian media, and changing rural institutions.
6. | Levi G. Allen and James R. G. Kirk | Politics and Religion | 2025
God's Country: Perceptions of Religious and Place-Based Candidate Identities. Survey experiments demonstrate that Americans distinguish rural identity from evangelical identity, warning against assuming that rural and evangelical political identities are interchangeable.
7. | Amy Richlin | Journal for the Anthropology of North America | 2025
COVID-19 and Evangelical Christianity: Growing Distrust and Faith Among White Rural Americans. Ethnographic work in Oregon describes evangelical churches as important institutions through which rural residents interpreted government distrust, pandemic restrictions, loss, and autonomy.
8. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | November 8, 2023
Why a Bucolic Tennessee Suburb Is a Hotbed of Christian Nashville-ism. Reporting explores conservative Christian institution-building, local political organization, churches, and migration into the Nashville region.
Geography and Distribution of Christian Nationalism
9. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 17, 2026
Mapping Christian Nationalism Across the 50 States. The highest levels of Christian-nationalist support occur primarily in Southern, Appalachian, Great Plains, and Midwestern states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
10. | Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry | Nations and Nationalism | June 3, 2025
Christian Nationalism and the Vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election: A State-Level Analysis. State-level Christian-nationalism scores were strongly associated with Trump's 2024 electoral performance.
11. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 4, 2025
Christian Nationalism Across All 50 States. PRRI finds especially high Christian-nationalist support in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and North Dakota.
12. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | October 30, 2024
Resistance to Christian Nationalism in All 50 States. PRRI emphasizes that large numbers of Americans, including residents of many rural and Republican states, reject or remain skeptical of Christian nationalism.
13. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | February 28, 2024
Support for Christian Nationalism in All 50 States. The 2023 American Values Atlas found a geographic concentration of support stretching through parts of the Upper Midwest, Deep South, and Appalachia.
14. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | 2024
American Values Survey. The survey provides broader context connecting religion, immigration, democracy, demographic change, partisan identity, and political violence.
15. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | 2023
American Values Survey. PRRI documents relationships among religion, authoritarian attitudes, election denial, cultural replacement fears, and support for political violence.
16. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | 2021
2020 Census of American Religion. County-level estimates demonstrate major regional differences in evangelical Protestant, Catholic, mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, and religiously unaffiliated populations.
Rural Identity, Political Geography, and Community Change
17. | Associated Press and KFF | Associated Press | October 5, 2026
Trump's Immigration Crackdown Divides Rural Voters as Midterms Approach. A major survey of rural registered voters shows strong partisan disagreement about immigration enforcement while also finding broad recognition of immigrant labor's importance to agriculture and rural economies.
18. | Associated Press and KFF | Associated Press | September 30, 2026
Rural MAHA Followers Say Trump Hasn't Improved Health of Their Communities. The poll illustrates that rural conservative political identity does not automatically translate into satisfaction with conservative federal policy.
19. | Trevor E. Brown and Suzanne Mettler | Annual Review of Political Science | June 17, 2025
Rural Politics in the United States. A broad review of scholarship explaining the movement of many white rural voters toward the Republican Party and the development of the contemporary rural–urban political divide.
20. | Lisa R. Pruitt | UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper | February 19, 2025
Leveraging Rural Identity to Revive Two-Party Politics in Rural America. Pruitt argues that rural identity and perceptions of disrespect are increasingly important components of rural political behavior.
21. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | January 8, 2025
What Is Rural? The USDA explains the multiple federal definitions of rurality, an important caution when interpreting political claims about rural America.
22. | Anirban Dasgupta and Enrique Ramirez | American Political Science Review | 2025
Explaining Rural Conservatism: Political Consequences of Technological Change in the Great Plains. The study connects long-term economic and technological restructuring in agricultural regions with changes in conservative political behavior.
23. | Tim Huijsmans and Jonathan Rodden | Comparative Political Studies | 2025
The Great Global Divider? A Comparison of Urban-Rural Partisan Polarization in Western Democracies. The authors compare geographic polarization internationally and show that the American rural–urban divide belongs to a wider democratic pattern.
24. | Suzanne Mettler and Trevor Brown | Princeton University Press | 2025
Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy. The book investigates the emergence of the geographic partisan divide and its implications for democratic representation and political legitimacy.
25. | Thomas Hershewe and Asher Smith | American Politics Research | September 11, 2024
When Politics Override Place: How Political Affiliation Supersedes Rural Identity. Experiments show that partisan identity can override rural identity, particularly among rural Democrats.
26. | Sarah Melotte | The Daily Yonder | May 31, 2024
Rural Voters Don't Wield Disproportionate Power in Senate, Electoral College. The analysis questions claims that institutional overrepresentation can simply be attributed to rural voters themselves.
27. | Nicholas F. Jacobs and B. Kal Munis | Reason | March 7, 2024
The Truth About Rural Rage. The authors challenge sweeping portrayals of rural Americans as uniquely angry or antidemocratic and argue for more precise interpretations of rural political attitudes.
28. | Political scientists | Perspectives on Politics | 2024
Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Rural-Urban Political Divide, 1976–2020. The study finds evangelical congregations have served as important organizational settings for conservative political mobilization, particularly as rural economic and cultural grievances intensified.
29. | Kristin Lunz Trujillo | Political Behavior | 2024
Feeling Out of Place. Some people who identify culturally as rural no longer live in rural areas, demonstrating that rural identity can persist independently of current residence.
30. | Krystal Newby | American Politics Research | 2024
Race or Place: Partisanship Among Black Rural Voters. Black rural voters differ substantially from white rural voters, demonstrating that rural geography alone cannot explain political ideology.
31. | Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman | Random House | 2024
White Rural Rage. The authors argue that a portion of white rural political culture has developed strong anti-establishment and antidemocratic tendencies, a thesis that generated substantial scholarly debate.
32. | U.S. Census Bureau | U.S. Census Bureau | 2024
Rural America. Demographic information provides context for the geographic diversity underlying contemporary rural political debates.
33. | Emily Diamond | Perspectives on Politics | 2023
Understanding Rural Identities and Environmental Policy Attitudes in America. Rural identity influences environmental attitudes beyond simple Republican partisanship, demonstrating the independent political significance of place.
34. | Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer and Timothy J. Nelson | Mariner Books | 2023
The Injustice of Place. The authors document concentrated disadvantage in rural counties and show how institutional abandonment, poor health, poverty, and political alienation reinforce one another.
35. | Nicholas F. Jacobs and B. Kal Munis | Political Research Quarterly | 2023
Place-Based Resentment in Contemporary U.S. Elections. The research identifies individual-level sources of resentment between rural and urban Americans and connects these attitudes to voting.
36. | Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea | Columbia University Press | 2023
The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America. Based on extensive survey research, the book examines rural identity, resentment, political behavior, and feelings of cultural marginalization.
37. | Jeffrey Lyons and Stephen Utych | Political Behavior | 2023
You're Not From Here! The Consequences of Urban and Rural Identities. Strong place identity produces measurable political judgments about people perceived as belonging to geographic out-groups.
38. | Joshua Thompson | Public Opinion Quarterly | 2023
Rural Identity and LGBT Public Opinion in the United States. Strong rural identity is associated with attitudes toward LGBT issues even after accounting for conventional demographic and partisan explanations.
39. | Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zack Crowley | Political Geography | 2022
Symbolic versus Material Concerns of Rural Consciousness in the United States. The authors find that perceived disrespect for rural ways of life predicts Trump support more consistently than concerns about material resource distribution.
40. | M. V. Hood III and Seth C. McKee | University of South Carolina Press | 2022
Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South. The authors document how rural Southern counties shifted from Democratic dominance to Republican identification over several decades.
41. | B. Kal Munis | Political Behavior | 2022
Us Over Here Versus Them Over There—Literally. Munis develops measures of place-based resentment and shows that feelings toward urban or rural out-groups influence political attitudes.
42. | Kristin Lunz Trujillo | Political Behavior | 2022
Rural Identity as a Contributing Factor to Anti-Intellectualism in the U.S. Strong rural identification is associated with distrust of experts and intellectual institutions, an attitude relevant to conflicts over universities, science, and public health.
43. | U.S. Census Bureau | U.S. Census Bureau | December 29, 2022
Nation's Urban and Rural Populations Shift Following 2020 Census. Census data help establish the actual size, distribution, and changing demographic character of rural America.
44. | Matthew D. Nelsen and Christopher D. Petsko | Perspectives on Politics | 2021
Race and White Rural Consciousness. The study finds that white rural identity is intertwined with racial attitudes and feelings that rural communities receive insufficient respect.
45. | Zoe Nemerever and Melissa Rogers | Political Analysis | 2021
Measuring the Rural Continuum in Political Science. The authors show why binary rural-versus-urban categories can obscure major political differences across metropolitan, small-town, and remote communities.
46. | Jennifer Sherman | University of California Press | 2021
Dividing Paradise. Ethnographic research in rural communities examines inequality, class divisions, migration, housing, and competing understandings of who legitimately belongs.
Did Rural Resentment of Government Employees Elect Donald Trump? A nationwide study finds that party identification and education explain resentment toward government workers more strongly than rural residence by itself.
48. | James G. Gimpel, Nathan Lovin, Bryant Moy and Andrew Reeves | Political Behavior | 2020
The Urban-Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior. Geographic location increasingly predicts partisan behavior even after accounting for demographic characteristics.
49. | Gary Paul Green | Local Development & Society | 2020
Deindustrialization of Rural America: Economic Restructuring and the Rural Ghetto. The article analyzes how manufacturing decline, job loss, and institutional deterioration have transformed rural communities.
50. | Brian C. Thiede, J. L. W. Butler, David L. Brown and Leif Jensen | Rural Sociology | 2020
Income Inequality Across the Rural-Urban Continuum in the United States, 1970–2016. The article documents geographic differences in inequality and long-term restructuring of rural economies.
51. | Jonathan A. Rodden | Basic Books | 2019
Why Cities Lose. Rodden shows how the geographic concentration of Democratic voters in cities interacts with American electoral institutions to produce political consequences.
52. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 22, 2018
What Unites and Divides Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities. Rural residents report distinctive concerns over population change, economic opportunity, community values, and how outsiders perceive their communities.
53. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 22, 2018
Demographic and Economic Trends in Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities. The report provides demographic context for aging, educational attainment, racial composition, migration, and economic change across rural America.
54. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 22, 2018
Views of Problems Facing Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities. Rural residents identify drug addiction, jobs, and economic hardship among important local problems, complicating purely cultural explanations of rural politics.
55. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 22, 2018
How Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities See Each Other. Rural Americans frequently believe outsiders misunderstand or negatively stereotype rural life, a perception central to theories of rural consciousness.
56. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 22, 2018
Community Satisfaction and Local Problems. Despite political narratives of rural despair, many rural residents express attachment to and satisfaction with their communities.
57. | Robert Wuthnow | Princeton University Press | 2018
The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America. Interviews in rural communities explore population loss, declining institutions, cultural threat, distrust of outsiders, and anger toward distant political elites.
58. | David A. Hopkins | Cambridge University Press | 2017
Red Fighting Blue. Hopkins analyzes how geography and electoral institutions contribute to partisan polarization and differences between urban and nonmetropolitan America.
59. | Daniel J. Hopkins | University of Chicago Press | 2018
The Increasingly United States. National political conflicts increasingly dominate local politics, helping national culture-war issues penetrate rural elections and institutions.
Political Polarization Along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The authors document increasingly Republican presidential voting as communities become more rural.
61. | Katherine Cramer | The Washington Post | November 13, 2016
How Rural Resentment Helps Explain the Surprising Victory of Donald Trump. Cramer applies her research on rural resentment to Trump's electoral gains in rural Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest.
62. | Katherine J. Cramer | University of Chicago Press | 2016
The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Cramer's ethnographic research describes a rural consciousness structured around perceived shortages of political power, resources, and cultural respect.
63. | Arlie Russell Hochschild | The New Press | 2016
Strangers in Their Own Land. Ethnographic research in Louisiana explores conservative identity, religion, environmental politics, perceived displacement, and resentment of government among communities outside major metropolitan centers.
64. | Dante J. Scala, Kenneth M. Johnson and Luke T. Rogers | Political Geography | 2015
Red Rural, Blue Rural? The article demonstrates significant political variation among rural communities, challenging the idea of a uniformly conservative countryside.
65. | Enrico Moretti | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 2012
The New Geography of Jobs. Moretti describes the widening economic gap between prosperous metropolitan regions and communities left behind by economic restructuring.
66. | Katherine Cramer Walsh | American Political Science Review | July 30, 2012
Putting Inequality in Its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective. Rural participants frequently interpreted inequality through a place-based framework in which urban elites were perceived as controlling resources and disregarding rural communities.
67. | Seth C. McKee | PS: Political Science & Politics | 2008
Rural Voters and the Polarization of American Presidential Elections. McKee documents the emergence of a geographic voting divide well before Christian nationalism became a common term in public debate.
68. | Larry M. Bartels | Quarterly Journal of Political Science | 2006
What's the Matter With What's the Matter With Kansas? Bartels tests claims that working-class voters abandoned economic interests primarily because of cultural conservatism and finds a more complicated electoral picture.
69. | Thomas Frank | Metropolitan Books | 2004
What's the Matter With Kansas? Frank argues that cultural issues helped transform working-class and rural political loyalties even when conservative economic policies did not necessarily benefit those communities materially.
70. | Theda Skocpol | University of Oklahoma Press | 2003
Diminished Democracy. Skocpol describes the decline of broad-based voluntary associations and their replacement by professionally managed advocacy groups, a shift important for understanding changing rural civic life.
71. | John Gaventa | University of Illinois Press | 1980
Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Gaventa's classic Appalachian study explains how economic dependency and entrenched local power structures shape political participation and community consciousness.
72. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Economy and Population. Federal demographic and economic data provide context for population loss, industrial restructuring, aging, migration, employment change, and economic pressures affecting rural political life.
73. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Classifications. Different definitions of "rural" produce different populations, an important methodological caution when interpreting claims about rural Christian nationalism.
74. | U.S. Census Bureau | U.S. Census Bureau | Ongoing
Urban and Rural. Census definitions demonstrate that rural America includes a wide range of communities and should not be treated as a single cultural or political bloc.
75. | Kaiser Family Foundation | KFF | Various
Rural America Polling. Surveys investigate health care, economic conditions, immigration, community life, and political attitudes among rural Americans.
76. | Brookings Institution | Brookings | Various
Research on the rural–urban divide emphasizes demographic change, education, economic restructuring, migration, and institutional differences alongside cultural and religious factors.
77. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Population and Migration. Federal data track population growth and decline, migration, aging, and demographic change across nonmetropolitan America.
78. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Employment and Education. USDA research documents employment patterns, educational attainment, workforce change, and economic restructuring affecting rural communities.
Religion, Evangelicalism, and Political Mobilization
79. | Paul Lendway | Political Behavior / Yale ISPS | July 2, 2026
The Political Ramifications of Sermon Rhetoric Among White U.S. Protestants and White Catholics. Analysis of hundreds of sermons finds evangelical sermons more frequently use cultural and elite-threat rhetoric that parallels Republican political messaging.
80. | Philip Schwadel | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | March 31, 2026
White Religion, Politics, and Racial Resentment in the United States. The study examines relationships among conservative Christianity, racial resentment, and Republican political identification.
81. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | February 26, 2025
Religious Landscape Study. Updated national data show continued religious change, including declining Christian identification and substantial regional variation relevant to Christian-nationalist perceptions of demographic loss.
82. | Levi G. Allen | Political Research Quarterly | 2024
Embattlement and Resilience Among White Evangelical Democrats. The study demonstrates meaningful political diversity among white evangelicals and investigates how Democratic evangelicals negotiate tension between religious and partisan identities.
83. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | 2024
Religious Groups' Partisanship and Ideology. White evangelical Protestants remain among the most consistently Republican religious constituencies in the United States.
84. | Political scientists | Politics and Religion | 2024
Division on the Christian Right: Republican Pastors and the Use of Force. Research among clergy examines divisions within conservative Christianity concerning Christian nationalism and political force.
85. | PRRI and American Communities Project | American Communities Project | April 15, 2022
Religious Stereotypes vs. Reality in Urban, Suburban, and Rural America. County-level religious data reveal considerable diversity within rural America despite differences between rural and metropolitan religious landscapes.
86. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | 2021
Religious Composition of Political Parties. The report documents the importance of white evangelical Protestants to the Republican coalition and religiously unaffiliated Americans to the Democratic coalition.
87. | Lydia Bean | Princeton University Press | 2014
The Politics of Evangelical Identity. Comparing congregations in the United States and Canada, Bean argues that conservative politics becomes embedded in ordinary practices within American evangelical churches rather than simply being imposed by national leaders.
88. | Darren Dochuk | W. W. Norton / University listings | 2011
From Bible Belt to Sunbelt. Dochuk traces how migration, plain-folk religion, evangelical institutions, business networks, and anti-government conservatism helped create the modern Christian Right.
89. | Daniel K. Williams | Oxford University Press | 2010
God's Own Party. Williams traces the growth of the Christian Right and its relationship to Republican politics from the mid-twentieth century onward.
90. | Ted G. Jelen | Praeger | 1991
The Political Mobilization of Religious Beliefs. Based partly on churches in a rural Midwestern county, Jelen examines how religious beliefs become politically mobilized and why theological divisions can limit Christian-right coalition building.
91. | Frances FitzGerald | Simon & Schuster | 2017
The Evangelicals. A broad history of American evangelicalism that provides background for understanding the political transformation of evangelical churches across the South, Midwest, and rural America.
92. | Daniel K. Williams | Harvard University Press | 2020
The Politics of the Cross. Historical research provides context for the long relationship between evangelical Christianity and conservative politics that predates contemporary Christian nationalism.
93. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | Ongoing
Religious Landscape Study. Pew's geographic religious data are useful for distinguishing actual religious affiliation patterns in rural America from stereotypes about rural evangelical uniformity.
94. | Washington University in St. Louis | Religion & Politics | Ongoing
Religion & Politics. Scholarship and reporting provide continuing analysis of evangelical politics, Christian nationalism, race, regional identity, and church-state conflicts across the United States.
95. | Religion News Service | Religion News Service | Ongoing
Christian Nationalism Coverage. RNS reports extensively on how Christian nationalism operates through churches, clergy, political candidates, local activism, education disputes, and national political organizations.
96. | Associated Press | Associated Press | Ongoing
Religion Coverage. AP reporting provides local and national examples of evangelical political mobilization, church-state disputes, Christian nationalism, and resistance among Christian leaders.
Race, Demography, Culture, and Social Issues
Christian Nationalism, the Antisocial Gospel? The study contrasts Christian-nationalist beliefs with Christian ideas concerning charity, social justice, and responsibilities toward others.
98. | Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead | Social Forces | April 24, 2026
Culture Wars and Classism. Christian nationalism is associated with approval of economic inequality particularly among higher-income Americans, complicating explanations based purely on working-class or rural economic grievance.
99. | Gregory A. Smith | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | 2026
Partisan and Racial Sorting of Christian Nationalism, 1996–2022. Long-term data indicate that Christian-nationalist identity has become increasingly sorted along partisan and racial lines.
100. | Brooklyn Walker et al. | Perspectives on Politics | October 14, 2025
Religion Is Sometimes Raced: Christian Nationalism as In-Group Protection. The authors find that Christian nationalism can operate as a broader mechanism of group protection whose racial consequences vary by issue and racial group.
101. | Brock Lewis | Discover Education | May 7, 2025
A Neglected Crisis: Understanding Christian Nationalism's Effects on American Education. The paper examines Christian nationalism in private Christian schooling as well as book bans, parental-rights campaigns, and public-school curriculum conflicts.
102. | Paul A. Djupe | Sociology of Religion | March 8, 2025
Jesus and John Wayne Wannabes. Djupe examines how masculinity, femininity, Christian nationalism, and extreme political attitudes interact among American men.
103. | Brooklyn Walker and Paul A. Djupe | Political Research Quarterly | February 14, 2025
Christian Nationalism Is Unbounded by LGB Identity. Christian-nationalist views appear among some LGB Americans as well, demonstrating that the movement cannot be reduced to a single demographic category.
104. | Sociologists | Social Forces | 2025
The Religion of White Identity Politics: Christian Nationalism and White Racial Solidarity. The study examines how Christian nationalism and white group consciousness combine in contemporary American politics.
105. | Sociologists | Social Forces | 2025
Order Begins at Home: Christian Nationalism and Control Over Children. Christian nationalism is associated with support for greater parental authority and state-sanctioned control over children's education and upbringing.
106. | Ryan Dawkins, Zoe Nemerever, B. Kal Munis and Francis Verville | Political Behavior | 2024
Place, Race, and the Geographic Politics of White Grievance. The authors examine how geographic identity and racial attitudes combine in expressions of white political grievance.
107. | Sean F. Everton | Frontiers in Social Psychology | November 6, 2024
Not All Christian Nationalists Are White. The study examines predictors of Christian nationalism and specifically considers rural Americans, finding that rural residence alone does not automatically predict Christian-nationalist attitudes.
Race Over Religion: Christian Nationalism and Perceived Threats to National Unity. The study finds that racial diversity can be perceived as a stronger threat than religious diversity among some Christian nationalists.
Fill the Earth and Subdue It. Christian nationalism and perceived threats to white and Christian status are associated with support for nationalist pronatalism.
110. | Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joshua B. Grubbs | Social Forces | November 11, 2021
Divided by Faith (in Christian America). Among white Americans, Christian nationalism is associated with stronger perceptions of white victimhood and weaker recognition of anti-Black racial injustice.
111. | Ashley Jardina | Political Behavior | 2021
In-Group Love and Out-Group Hate. The research distinguishes white group attachment from explicit racial hostility and examines both in contemporary electoral politics.
112. | Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead | Sociology of Religion | May 14, 2020
Keep America Christian (and White): Christian Nationalism, Fear of Ethnoracial Outsiders, and Intention to Vote for Donald Trump. Christian nationalism's relationship to Trump support was closely connected to immigration and ethnoracial threat.
113. | Ashley Jardina | Cambridge University Press | 2019
White Identity Politics. Jardina explains how white racial consciousness developed into an independent force in American politics, relevant to understanding racial components of some Christian-nationalist appeals.
114. | Diana C. Mutz | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | May 8, 2018
Status Threat and the 2016 Election. The research provides evidence that perceived loss of social dominance can be politically powerful even in the absence of worsening personal economic circumstances.
115. | Jose A. DelReal and Scott Clement | The Washington Post / Kaiser Family Foundation | June 17, 2017
New Poll of Rural Americans Shows Deep Cultural Divide With Urban Residents. The survey found especially strong rural concerns that Christian values were under attack and documented major geographic differences over immigration, government, and social change.
116. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Poverty and Well-Being. Federal research provides economic and social context concerning poverty, food insecurity, health, employment, and well-being in rural America.
Democracy, Elections, Authority, and Political Behavior
117. | Brooklyn Walker and Kevin J. Mullinix | Political Science Quarterly | April 9, 2026
An Eye for an Eye? The Conditional Punitiveness of Christian Nationalists. The article examines circumstances under which Christian-nationalist beliefs translate into support for punitive criminal-justice policies.
118. | Brooklyn Walker and Paul A. Djupe | Religion in Public | March 27, 2026
Preaching Religious Pluralism Can't Save Us From Christian Nationalism. The authors summarize research suggesting that simply endorsing religious pluralism may be insufficient to counter Christian-nationalist political attitudes.
119. | Paul A. Djupe and Brooklyn Walker | Politics and Religion | March 26, 2026
The Weakness of Anti-Christian Nationalism. Religious pluralist attitudes do not necessarily neutralize the effects of Christian-nationalist beliefs when political or social threats become salient.
120. | Political scientists | Political Behavior | 2025
We Should All Be Christian Nationalists: Elite Influence on Identification With Christian Nationalism. The research investigates how political elites can increase willingness among citizens to explicitly adopt the Christian-nationalist label.
121. | Samuel L. Perry and Joshua B. Grubbs | Politics and Religion | September 19, 2024
Christian Nationalism and Support for Leaders Violating Democratic Norms During National Emergencies. Christian nationalism strongly predicted willingness to suspend elections, weaken checks and balances, or suppress political opponents during emergencies.
122. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | September 10, 2024
One Leader Under God. PRRI analyzes connections among Christian nationalism, authoritarian attitudes, immigration, patriarchy, democratic commitments, and willingness to accept political violence.
123. | Samuel L. Perry | Politics and Religion | October 2, 2024
Which Political Entities Are Friendly to Religion? Christian nationalism shapes perceptions of whether political parties and government institutions are friendly or hostile toward religion.
124. | Political scientists | Politics and Religion | 2024
The Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hate of Christian Nationalism. Experiments suggest Christian nationalism produces preferences favoring Christian in-groups while perceptions of Christian persecution can intensify hostility toward outsiders.
125. | Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joshua B. Grubbs | Sociology of Religion | May 8, 2023
Liberty for Us, Limits for Them. Christian nationalism predicts strong support for gun rights, states' rights, and religious freedom while correlating with weaker support for several civil-libertarian protections.
126. | Miles T. Armaly, David T. Buckley and Adam M. Enders | Political Behavior | January 4, 2022
Christian Nationalism and Political Violence. The study links Christian nationalism, perceived victimhood, racial identity, conspiratorial thinking, and support for the January 6 Capitol attack.
127. | Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joshua B. Grubbs | Sociological Forum | January 3, 2022
I Don't Want Everybody to Vote. Christian nationalism predicts beliefs that voting is too easy, voter fraud is widespread, and political participation should be restricted to citizens deemed worthy.
128. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | June 30, 2021
Behind Biden's 2020 Victory. Trump received strong support among rural voters, particularly white rural voters, while white evangelical Protestants formed a major part of his electoral coalition.
129. | Robert P. Jones and PRRI | Public Religion Research Institute | January 2021
White Christian Nationalism and January 6. Analysis examines the religious, racial, and nationalist symbolism surrounding efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
130. | Samuel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joshua B. Grubbs | Politics and Religion | 2021
The Devil That You Know. Christian nationalism helped retain previous Trump voters and encouraged some previous non-Trump voters toward supporting him in 2020.
Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election. Christian nationalism independently predicted support for Trump even after accounting for economic dissatisfaction and several measures of prejudice.
132. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | August 9, 2018
An Examination of the 2016 Electorate. Validated-voter data document Trump's strong performance among white evangelical and rural voters while allowing the two groups to be analyzed separately.
133. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | June 26, 2025
Detailed Demographic Profiles of Trump and Harris Voters in 2024. Rural voters constituted a substantially larger share of Trump's coalition than Harris's, while Protestants and white evangelicals remained disproportionately represented among Trump voters.
134. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | April 9, 2024
Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation. Pew documents the dramatic movement of rural voters toward the Republican Party since 2008 alongside changing religious partisan coalitions.
Christian Nationalism: Definitions, History, and General Research
135. | Nilay Saiya | Politics and Religion | May 13, 2025
The Varieties of American Christian Nationalism. Saiya distinguishes charismatic dominionism, Calvinist nationalism, and Catholic integralism, emphasizing ideological diversity within the broader movement.
136. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 27, 2022
Views of the U.S. as a Christian Nation and Opinions About Christian Nationalism. Pew explores Americans' definitions of a Christian nation and shows that support for Christian influence in public life varies substantially across religious and political groups.
137. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 27, 2022
In Their Own Words: How Americans Describe Christian Nationalism. Respondents describe the term in sharply different ways, ranging from Christian moral influence to authoritarianism, racial exclusion, and political manipulation of religion.
138. | Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry | Oxford University Press | 2022
The Flag and the Cross. The authors trace white Christian nationalism through American history and connect contemporary manifestations to race, hierarchy, violence, masculinity, and national mythology.
139. | Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry | Oxford University Press | 2020
Taking America Back for God. The foundational sociological study develops a Christian-nationalism scale and argues that the ideology is better understood as a cultural framework than simply a measure of Christian religiosity.
140. | Mark T. Edwards, editor | Religions | 2016
Christian Nationalism in the United States. This special issue treats Christian nationalism as a recurring construction in American history rather than a phenomenon limited to the contemporary evangelical right.
141. | Richard T. Hughes | University of Illinois / Princeton listing | 2009
Christian America and the Kingdom of God. A historical and theological critique of the claim that the United States has a unique Christian national identity.
Reference Data, Surveys, and Continuing Coverage
142. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | 2025
Religious Landscape Study Interactive Data. Updated national and regional religious-demography data provide context for interpreting geographic differences in Christian identity and Christian-nationalist attitudes.
143. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | June 30, 2021
Behind Biden's Victory: Geography and Religion. Geographic and religious voting patterns reveal overlapping but analytically distinct rural, white, Protestant, and evangelical constituencies.
144. | The Guardian | The Guardian | Ongoing
Christian Nationalism Coverage. Reporting follows Christian-nationalist organizations, electoral politics, religious movements, and conflicts over democracy and public institutions.
145. | Cambridge University Press | Politics and Religion | Ongoing
Politics and Religion. The journal contains a growing body of peer-reviewed research examining Christian nationalism, evangelical identity, political tolerance, rural identity, democratic norms, and religious mobilization.
146. | Association for the Sociology of Religion | Sociology of Religion | Ongoing
Sociology of Religion. Research in the journal documents Christian nationalism's relationships to voting, race, immigration, gender, rights, national identity, and political extremism.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Recent studies examine Christian nationalism, partisan sorting, charitable and social-justice attitudes, race, political identity, and changing patterns of American religion.
148. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | Ongoing
Religious Landscape Study. Pew's geographic religious data provide continuing reference material for comparing religious affiliation across rural, suburban, and urban America.
149. | Washington University in St. Louis | Religion & Politics | Ongoing
Rural Politics and Religion Coverage. The publication provides continuing scholarship and reporting concerning religion, regional identity, evangelical politics, Christian nationalism, and political polarization.
150. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Population and Migration. Continuing federal data provide demographic context for rural population change, aging, migration, and regional economic patterns.
151. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Employment and Education. Continuing federal data provide context for rural employment, educational attainment, and economic opportunity.
152. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Poverty and Well-Being. Continuing federal data provide context for poverty, health, food insecurity, and socioeconomic conditions in rural communities.
153. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 27, 2022
Views of the U.S. as a Christian Nation and Opinions About Christian Nationalism. Americans assign different meanings to the idea that the United States is a Christian nation, ranging from cultural heritage to explicit government promotion of Christianity.
154. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | October 27, 2022
In Their Own Words: How Americans Describe Christian Nationalism. Open-ended responses demonstrate wide disagreement about the meaning and desirability of Christian nationalism.
155. | USDA Economic Research Service | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Ongoing
Rural Economy and Population. USDA's continuing statistical resources provide background on economic restructuring, demographic trends, employment, migration, and other conditions shaping rural America.
