• Mitt Romney is running behind in many of the major polls making headlines in the latter part of September, but one demographic is providing good news for the Romney campaign: rural voters in battleground states.
• Voters in the rural counties of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin prefer Romney by 14 percentage points, according to a National Rural Assembly poll released Monday.
• President Obama made inroads among this population in 2008, when 47 percent voted for him--which was still less than the 49.4 percent who voted for Republican John McCain, but was a significant advance from the 39.8 percent that Democrat John Kerry had in 2004. The poll conducted Sept. 15-18 for the National Rural Assembly found that support had eroded: 40 percent of rural voters in swing states said they would vote for Obama, while 54 percent said they would vote for Romney.
• The poll was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which does polling for Democratic candidates, with input from Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies, which works with Republican candidates and advocacy groups.
• According to Bolger, the rural areas of swing states "are not much of a battleground," Bolger said. "The challenge for the President is just not to get beat too badly in the rural areas…. This presages a very close election, because as well as Obama did in the rural areas in 2008, he's clearly not replicating that."
• "Rural areas in this country are very tough for President Obama," said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg. "It was tough four years ago, and they're even tougher now. I think that that is obviously important in a very close presidential race because it's really Mitt Romney's geographic base."
• The poll, as reported by The Daily Yonder blog, shows Romney's advantage among the rural demographic goes deep:
• · 54 percent said Romney would do a better job of improving the economy, compared to 37 percent for Obama.
• · 53 percent said Romney would make a better Commander in Chief (39 percent said Obama would).
• · These rural voters said Romney would do a better job of meeting the needs of the middle class, and also representing the voters views on taxes.
• · 47 percent said Romney would do a better job of dealing with rural issues,

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