Editor’s Note: This post is from our data newsletter, the Rural Index, headed by Sarah Melotte, the Daily Yonder’s data reporter. Subscribe to get a weekly map or graph straight to your inbox.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what drove the national blue wave, while taking a break from number-crunching the midterm results. The Yonder’s data analysis revealed that the national shift took place regardless of geography, from some of the nation’s largest progressive cities to deeply red rural counties. While it’s hard to pin down election outcomes on a singular issue, in press interviews this week, I largely attributed shifts in voting behavior to worries about the economy. According to our own polling, economic concerns have been a consistent worry among rural voters in recent years.
But in the process of collecting all of my favorite maps and graphics from various news sources this midterm cycle, I noticed that race, redistricting, and religion were all major themes that emerged in this year’s analysis. While we can’t say that these three themes were solely responsible for the blue wave, this edition of the Rural Index explores how they might have contributed to it.
Race: Black Women Making History
Governor-elect of Georgia Keisha Lance Bottoms made history last week by becoming the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. She garnered 54% of the vote, increasing the share of voters who supported the Democratic candidate by 8 percentage points compared to the 2022 gubernatorial race. Although Bottoms did not secure the majority of the rural Georgia vote, she did increase rural voter support for the Democratic candidate by 6 percentage points, according to my analysis of preliminary data.
Last Tuesday night, Juliana Stratton became the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, leading to the first time that three Black women will be Senators at the same time. In New York, Adrienne Adams was the first Black woman elected Lieutenant Governor in the state. Tya Mathis-Coleman will serve as State Treasurer alongside Nevada’s first Black governor, Democrat Aaron Ford. The list of accomplishments goes on.
Public Policy Professor Niambi Carter (Ph.D.) said that federal layoffs have been partly responsible for the increase in Black turnout this midterm cycle. “Black women typically show up anyway, but, absolutely, the layoffs and the firings have had a devastating effect on Black women,” Carter said in an interview with NBC Washington.
But mass layoffs weren’t the only factor that contributed to voter mobilization. According to reporting from Capital B News, a Black-led nonprofit news organization, Democratic voters in some districts kept Black representatives seated in gerrymandered districts that were expected to favor the GOP. Black-led organizations like the NAACP have been working hard on Get Out the Vote efforts in part through grassroots approaches.
Read Capital B News: Black Congressional Representation Holds Steady Despite Fears of Steep Losses
Source: Capital B News
A data analysis from Capital B News found that U.S. House seats are down in Black representation, from 65 to 61. U.S. But the Senate will have a record number of Black members, although representation in the Senate still doesn’t equal the share of the American population that is Black.
Latino voters also moved left this midterm cycle. Democrats won every U.S. House seat in the districts that border Mexico, from Southern California to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Data analysis from Daily Yonder reporter Madeline de Figueiredo also showed that, compared to 2022, all Texas counties moved left in this year’s gubernatorial race.
Read Associated Press: Latino voters swing left in midterm elections, lifting Democrats to big wins in Texas and nationwide
Source: Associated Press
Redistricting
Trump tried to create five new congressional seats for the GOP in Texas last year, which sparked a gerrymandering battle across the country. California legislators retaliated with their own counterproposal that would favor Democrats. When the Supreme Court passed Louisiana v. Callais, a landmark decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, three Southern states drew new racially-discriminatory maps that favored GOP candidates. (Back in June, I covered how voting rights restrictions disproportionately hurt rural voters of color.)
One-third of congressional districts were redrawn since Trump began his second term, representing 115 districts. Out of those 115 districts, only 11 would have flipped to voting for Trump under the new maps, according to a data analysis from the Associated Press.
Read Associated Press: How redistricting shaped the 2026 midterm elections
Source: Associated Press
Some polling seems to indicate that voter suppression played a role in turnout this year. A poll from September found that, out of 700 Black women respondents, 87% cited the gutting of the Voting Rights Act as a major motivation to cast their ballots this year.
Religion
Faith emerged as a major discussion point this midterm cycle, but not always in the manner we’re used to.
Seminarian James Talarico won Texas’s Senate seat for Democrats, moving even rural Texas voters 7.5 points to the left compared to the 2024 presidential race. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed will serve as the first Muslim U.S. Senator. In Ohio, Amy Acton will serve as the state’s first Jewish governor.
Read Religion News Service: Secular voters are increasing. Can ‘the nones’ become a political force?
Source: Religion News Service
These candidates have broken what some reporters have called a “monopoly” that Republicans have had over national faith conversations. Talarico ran firmly on his Christian values while also denouncing Christian nationalism, a political ideology that sociologists say organizes social and political life around Protestant norms. Though the term is frequently (and erroneously) used as a catch-all for conservative religious beliefs, experts define the core tenets of Christian nationalism more clearly. Sociology of religion scholar Samuel L. Perry and his colleagues developed a psychometric test that asks respondents whether they agree or disagree on five main questions, which are printed here verbatim:
The success of the United States is part of God’s plan
I consider the founding documents, like the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, to be divinely inspired
The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation
The federal government should advocate Christian values
The federal government should enforce a strict separation of church and state
According to a PRRI survey that used Perry et al.’s test to study political violence, respondents who score high on the Christian nationalism metrics, individuals referred to as “adherents”, are more likely to support political violence. Only 4% of Americans at large said they completely agree with the following statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” But 11% of Christian nationalist adherents said they completely agree, while another 19% said they mostly agree.
Talarico called Christian nationalism a “cancer.” He lost to Protestants, but did better among religious nones (78%), or those who claim no religious affiliation, according to the Religion News Service. Pew Research found that white evangelicals were the only group where a majority still preferred the GOP candidate during their pre-election polling. Seventy-three percent of white evangelical Protestants said they were going to support the Republican candidate this cycle.
Stay tuned for more of our midterm coverage as we continue to analyze rural voting trends across the nation.
The post 2026 Midterms Roundup: Race, Redistricting, and Religion appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
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