The Power of Place: Rural Descriptive Representation and Policy Support

Abstract Rural Americans constitute a politically consequential yet theoretically understudied identity group. This study reconceptualizes descriptive representation to include place-based identities and demonstrates its influence on policy support and political trust. Using a preregistered, original survey experiment of rural respondents, we assess whether rural Americans exhibit greater support for laws and perceive it as more beneficial to rural communities when proposed by state representatives who share their rural identity. Our findings strongly support this hypothesis: rural Americans express higher levels of support for laws that were introduced by descriptively representative lawmakers and are more likely to believe such policies benefit rural areas. Moreover, respondents demonstrate higher levels of trust in rural lawmakers even in the absence of additional information about them. These results illustrate that, for rural Americans, place-based identity is deeply influential in shaping their political perceptions.