Rural voters turned out in force across the 2026 primaries, shaping key races, and emerging as an electorate candidates cannot afford to overlook.
In Texas, rural voters turned out at the highest rate of any geographic voter group. In North Carolina, more rural voters participated in the Democratic primary than they did four years ago. In Wisconsin, rural turnout approached 36% in a primary race that drew the state’s highest midterm primary turnout in decades.
The primary results and turnout rates offer a clear signal ahead of the November midterms. Rural voters can, and will, make a difference in contests across the country.
Texas: Rural Counties Led the State in Turnout Rates
More than 4.4 million voters cast ballots in this year’s Texas primaries, the highest primary turnout in raw numbers in decades, surpassing even the 2024 and 2020 presidential primaries.
Overall, 24% of registered voters participated, compared with 17% in 2018 and 18% in 2022. The rural electorate led turnout rates. About 26% of registered rural voters cast a ballot, compared with 24% in major metropolitan counties, 25% in major-metro suburbs, 23% in small metros, 24% in medium-metro suburbs, and 20% in medium-sized metros.
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Across partisan elections, overall turnout increased by 47% compared to the 2022 midterm primaries. Major metropolitan counties, or counties with urban centers of more than one million residents, saw the largest increase (66%), followed by the suburbs of those major cities (54%). Medium-sized metropolitan counties, places with urban populations between 250,000 and one million residents, saw a 46% increase in turnout. Small metropolitan counties with fewer than 250,000 residents saw a 24% increase, while rural, or nonmetropolitan, counties saw a more modest, but still robust, 12% increase.
The 2022 comparison comes with an important caveat. The 2022 cycle featured a gubernatorial election, while the 2026 cycle featured a closely-watched Senate contest. In the Democratic Senate primary, State Representative James Talarico won against U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett. In the Republican Senate primary, incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton both advanced to a runoff, which Paxton won in May.
The increase in turnout is likely due, at least in part, to these high-profile races.
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North Carolina: More Rural Voters Chose the Democratic Primary
In North Carolina, rural participation shifted within the electorate.
Democratic turnout was up 33% compared to 2022. About 81% of the state’s rural counties saw increased turnout in the Democratic primary. The share of rural voters who participated in the Democratic primary also increased substantially. In 2022, about 36% of rural voters who cast a ballot voted in the Democratic primary. This year, that figure rose to 42%, representing almost 17,000 additional rural voters participating in the Democratic primary.
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The change was not limited to rural communities. Democratic participation increased most sharply in the state’s major metropolitan counties, where the share of voters participating in the Democratic primary rose from 61% in 2022 to 79% this year. Meanwhile, Republican primary participation fell by 18%, with about 139,000 fewer voters participating than in 2022.
North Carolina’s semi-closed primary system adds another layer to the results: registered Democrats and Republicans vote in their respective primaries, while unaffiliated voters can choose either ballot.
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The candidate results were decisive. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper won 92% of the Democratic Senate primary vote, while Trump-endorsed candidate Michael Whatley won 65% of the Republican vote.
Wisconsin: Rural Turnout Was Strong
Wisconsin’s primary produced both high participation and a clear candidate preference in rural counties. In the Democratic primary for governor, David Crowley, a Milwaukee County Executive, led Francesca Hong, a state assembly representative, among rural voters, 40.4% to 35.6%.
Hong campaigned on a strong stance supporting a moratorium on data centers. However, in nonmetro counties with current or historical data-center development, Crowley led Hong 40.6% to 35.8%, maintaining the pattern seen across rural counties.
The state turnout was striking. Nearly 36% of all registered voters participated statewide, including 35.8% of registered voters in nonmetro counties. It was the highest turnout for a midterm race in more than 20 years.
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That level of participation makes Wisconsin’s rural electorate particularly important to watch as the state moves toward November.
Michigan: Rural Voters Narrowly Backed Democrat El-Sayed
Democratic Senate primary produced one of the closest rural contests of the cycle. Abdul El-Sayed, a DSA-endorsed candidate who currently serves as executive director of the Detroit Health Department, narrowly led U.S. Representative Haley Stevens among rural voters, 47.55% to 47%. More than 212,000 rural voters participated. El-Sayed received approximately 100,950 votes, compared with roughly 99,770 for Stevens and 11,580 for Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow.
Stevens carried 37 rural counties, compared with 20 for El-Sayed, but El-Sayed posted some of his strongest margins in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. He led Stevens by more than 20 points in some rural counties including Grand Traverse, Houghton, and Marquette. In Gogebic County, Stevens won by just 14 votes.
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Statewide turnout was also substantially higher than in Michigan’s last competitive Democratic Senate primary. More than 2.5 million Michiganders voted across all contests, including more than 1.5 million in the Democratic Senate primary. Rural voters accounted for approximately 14% of Democratic Senate primary turnout.
Alaska: Where Rural Voters Have a Strong Presence
In Alaska, voters in rural statehouse districts made up the majority of voters that participated in the primary. The Senate primary was an all-party contest, with the top four candidates advancing to the November election. Democrat and former U.S. Representative Mary Peltola and incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan accounted for about 90% of the vote between them. Peltola led Sullivan statewide by 5 points, while Sullivan led Peltola by 2 points among rural voters.
The governor’s race follows the same all-party system. Democrats Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state representative, and Tom Begich, a former state senator, were the two leading candidates, together receiving 41.8% of the statewide vote and 37.5% of the rural vote. Republican candidate Bernadette Wilson carried about 11% of the rural vote and the remaining 14 candidates collectively carried around 46% of the rural vote.
Begich, who had carried 20.8% of the total primary vote, dropped out of the race to give leader Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who carried 22.5% of the statewide primary vote, a stronger path to victory.
Minnesota: Another Record-Breaking Turnout
Minnesota’s rural voters also turned out in significant numbers, but their preferences varied sharply by contest.
In the Democratic Senate primary, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan led U.S. Representative Angie Craig among rural voters, 51.5% to 45.6%.
The Republican governor’s primary was almost perfectly tied in rural Minnesota. Minnesota State Representative Lisa Demuth and Mike Lindell, former CEO of My Pillow, each received 37.5% of the rural vote, with Demuth holding an advantage of just 60 votes out of 128,081 rural voters. Despite the narrow lead among rural voters, Demuth carried an 11-point lead at the state level, advancing to the November election.
More than 1.1 million Minnesotans voted in the primary, a record-breaking level of participation.
Florida: Rural Voters Helped Propel an Upset
Progressive and Democratic Socialist candidate Angie Nixon, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, won the Democratic Senate primary in an upset over retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, despite a major fundraising disparity. Nixon did not clear $1 million in fundraising, while Vindman raised more than $16 million.
Nixon’s strength extended deep into rural Florida. In the Democratic primary, she won the rural vote by 20 points and carried 19 of the state’s 22 rural counties.
Nixon will face incumbent Senator Ashley Moody in November.
The post Rural Voters Showed Up in the 2026 Primaries appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
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