Today, Voters' Choice Isn't All About the Economy - WSJ Seib
(Seib it the political commentator and is not rabid..)
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Traditionally, the nation’s economic performance is the most important factor driving a presidential election. Today, the economy overall, and certainly the stock market hovering over it, are strong. As President Trump is buffeted by the winds of the Senate impeachment trial under way this week, the economy represents a big safety net for him. Yet the effects of the good economic news don’t cut evenly or neatly across the land, and political effects simply aren’t what analysts traditionally would have expected.
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Broadly speaking, some of the strongest economic growth during the Trump term has been seen in large, urban counties that are Democratic strongholds—and generally hostile to the president. Data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by the Economic Innovation Group show that jobs grew by 1.9% in big-city counties between mid-2017 and mid-2019, and by 1.3% in urban suburbs. Conversely, jobs actually shrank in farmland counties that are home to an older set of Americans, and grew by just 0.4% in working-class counties. Those places are the backbone of Trump Country.
Similarly, the economic pain of the president’s trade fights with China has been felt disproportionately in rural areas friendly to him. The Farm Bureau reports that farm bankruptcies rose 24% in the 12-month period ending in September 2019. The bureau estimates that farm income rose to $88 billion in 2019—yet 40% of that income came from government assistance and insurance payments, much of it to offset losses in the trade wars. Farm debt is estimated at a record high of $416 billion.
Yet support for the president remains rock solid in small-county and rural America. In aggregate Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling through 2019, the president’s job-approval rating was 44% among all Americans—but a whopping 70% in working-class counties, and 80% in farmlands counties.
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Yet some of the strongest Trump states politically also fell near the bottom of the economic-growth list: West Virginia ranked 48th, North Dakota 45th and Kentucky 40th. The statewide growth figures suggest one particular concern for the president. The key upper Midwest swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio fell 43rd, 39th and 36th, respectively, in third-quarter economic growth. Overall, growth rates in the Trump-unfriendly Pacific coast region easily outstripped the rates in the Trump-friendly plains.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/today-voters-choice-isnt-all-about-the-economy-11579532400 (paid subscription)
= new reply since forum marked as read
70% wwc +80% farmland trump approval 
