For years, immigration was one of Donald Trump’s strongest appeals in rural America. Now, that support is showing signs of strain.
A new Associated Press-KFF survey of more than 2,000 rural voters found the country’s immigration crackdown has produced a deeply divided reaction. Ahead of the midterms, roughly one-third said the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts have positively affected their communities.
About the same share said the impact has been negative, while roughly three in 10 said the policies had made little difference.
That is a striking shift for a president who made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign.
Trump promised the “largest deportation” effort in U.S. history, pledged to close the border, and moved to restrict birthright citizenship.
Those promises resonated in the very communities Trump came to dominate. Nearly seven in 10 rural voters backed him in 2024, according to Pew Research Center. And an October 2024 Fox News poll found support among rural voters for deporting immigrants living in the country illegally had risen 20 percentage points since 2015.
But the latest AP-KFF numbers reveal a more complicated picture.
About four in 10 rural voters now say Trump has “gone too far” in restricting legal immigration or deporting immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization.
That is because many rural voters also say immigrants are a key part of their local economies.
The poll showed that roughly seven in 10 say immigrants who are in the country legally are at least somewhat important to their local economies. A similar share says temporary and seasonal agricultural workers are important.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants work seasonal agricultural jobs in the U.S. each year, many through the H-2A visa program.
Shannon Monnat, director of the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University and president of the Rural Sociological Society, described immigration as a lifeline for many rural communities, where populations have struggled to retain younger residents.
“For a lot of small towns, immigrants are the reason the school and hospital stayed open and the county didn’t shrink,” Monnat told the Associated Press.
Laura Leigh Taylor, a 37-year-old Georgia farmer, backed Trump in 2024. But after watching the immigration crackdown reach people she knows, she now regrets her vote.
Taylor said she supports removing violent criminals from the country. However, she objects to the broader sweep of the administration’s enforcement, which she believes is catching people whose main concern is working and providing for their families.
“I understand getting rid of the rapists and the murderers,” she told AP. “But all the people that fell in between that really weren’t doing nothing but taking care of their family.”
A friend’s father was among those deported, Taylor said. The experience has changed her political outlook enough that she is now considering voting for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November, saying Democrats have been more vocal about the families affected by the crackdown.
“Just because of that simple fact, I’m going to go with [Ossoff],” Taylor said.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
The unease is not confined to voters who have abandoned Trump.
Jeff Miller, a 56-year-old Republican from Racine, Ohio, still approves of much of Trump’s agenda and believes the country is “heading in the right direction.” But the administration’s immigration policy has become a glaring exception.
Miller said a friend and “really good worker” was deported after his work permit expired. He said he could support a policy that made exceptions for people who work hard, or simply one that took a less aggressive approach.
“There’s kind of an up-and-down thing because I lost a really good friend over that,” Miller told AP.
For Albert Martinez, the divide is even more stark.
The 70-year-old Democrat from San Diego, Texas, voted for Trump in 2016 and supports deporting criminals. But as an Army veteran, he said he is increasingly troubled by who he sees being caught up in the crackdown.
Martinez said the administration’s enforcement is no longer limited to the people he believes should be targeted.
“They started doing everybody across the board,” Martinez told AP. “Innocent kids and women, people who work in restaurants, people who work in hotels, people who are building homes, people who are doing masonry work, and innocent, good, taxpaying people. Taxpayers. It’s insane.”
