September 30, 2026
Stephanie Lynn Ternullo (Harvard University)
Political scientists have devoted increasing attention to studying urban-rural polarization, but they have focused disproportionately on understanding the rise of Republicanism in rural and postindustrial contexts. This is despite the fact that the rightward turn in rural American is partly caused by changes in economic geography that have simultaneously drawn urban and suburban American to the Left: the rise of the knowledge economy that has disproportionately benefited some urban areas at the expense of formerly thriving industrial and rural communities. These changes have exacerbated demographic and political differences between rural and urban America by concentrating highly-educated, socially liberal workers in metro areas and drawing them away from outlying communities. This suggests that one group of people sits at the center of these trends in political and economic geography: rural high schoolers. When they attend college, they are more likely to move to cities and identify as Democrats, and when they stay behind, they are more likely to become Republicans. In this talk I will propose a new study designed to understand the political socialization experiences of this group of people, through repeated, in-depth interviews as they enter college (or not) and beyond. As such, this project will shed light on longstanding questions about how college life shapes students’ politics, and how rural Americans’ decisions about education and migration contribute to urban vs. rural polarization.