Forget Soccer Moms. Let’s Talk About Rural SNAP Voters.
Republican attempts to de-fund the nation’s largest anti-hunger program could be political gold in rural states. A Cocklebur analysis.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is expected to force a vote this week on the House Republicans’ proposed package of deep cuts to federal spending. Their “Limit, Save, Grow Act” would roll back many of President Biden’s signature legislative achievements—such as the clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act—in exchange for raising the “debt ceiling.”
One key plank in the House Republicans’ laundry list of federal budget cuts is slashing SNAP, theSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as “food stamps,” throughadditional work requirements for recipients. Reducing SNAP spending would have a significant negative impact on the rural economy. This Cocklebur analysis explores the potential political impact of Republican SNAP cut proposals in rural states.
Throughout 2023, the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees are re-negotiating the Farm Bill. The current bill expires on September 30, 2023. There is currently no publicly-available draft of the 2023 re-write.
SNAP Politics—It’s a Farm Bill Year
SNAP is the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, delivering more than $119 billion in food assistance in 2022 to poor and working class people. The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Just like funding for farmers, crop insurance, conservation programs, rural economic development, infrastructure, food inspections, research, and more, SNAP budgets and rules are determined by the Federal Farm Bill. The “Nutrition Title,” which includes SNAP, school meals, and other nutrition assistance programs, makes up nearly 80% of current federal Farm Bill budget (though that figure goes up and down annually due to changes in appropriations and SNAP participation rates).
Republicans have long sought SNAP benefit cuts and changes to rules that would limit eligibility through the Farm Bill process. The 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills were delayed for months by a large group of House Republicans over SNAP spending. This Farm Bill cycle is expected to see similar challenges. Already in 2023, leading Republicans on the Agriculture Committees have expressed their support for budget cuts and additional work requirements for SNAP recipients. But wiith a Republican-majority House, and the Senate and White House controlled by Democrats, many experts are predicting a compromise Farm Bill that retains the status quo.
SNAP in Rural
The mainstream media and many political pundits regularly portray federal Farm Bill debates as a negotiation between red-state rural legislators seeking expanded farm supports and blue-state urban elected officials who care primarily about SNAP. But the political reality is much more complex. A larger percentage of rural people actually use SNAP when compared with urban and suburban places. According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), rural people are 25% more likely than their urban counterparts to participate in SNAP. Nationally, participation is highest among households in rural counties (16%) compared with households in metro counties (13%).
More people use SNAP in rural America because rural counties tend to have higher rates of poverty than metropolitan counties. According to Daily Yonder analysis, 301 of 353 (85.3%) persistently-poor counties in the U.S. are rural. Persistent poverty counties (as they are termed by USDA’s Economic Research Service, ERS)are clustered in the South (84%). Of the 301 nonmetro persistent poverty counties, 267(88.7%) had a poverty rate over 20%.
SNAP advocates and researchers also convincingly argue that SNAP benefits are an important engine of rural economies. ERS hasfound that SNAP saves rural jobs and generates almost three times as many economic benefits in rural economies as they do in urban economies.
Another ERS study shows that SNAP spending tends to support independent grocery stores, finding that “areas with a high share of low-income households, as well as rural areas, tend to have more independent food retailers; relatively few chain stores operate in these areas.”
SNAP is Popular
In addition to SNAP’s importance to the rural economy, as a source of food for poor and working class people and an economic lifeline for independent grocery stores, SNAP polls well among voters from all classes, geographies, and party affiliations. More than two-thirds of voters supported increased SNAP benefits delivered by the Biden Administration in 2021, according to a Morning Consult poll.
A January 2023 Consumer Food Insights poll found that 70% of consumers think that SNAP benefits should be increased through the Farm Bill, according to Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability.
SNAP, Rural Voters, and Voter Participation
SNAP’s clear benefits and popularity, as well as this year’s ongoing Farm Bill debate in Congress, creates a political opening for potential change. As Republicans take positions on SNAP that are at odds with the vast majority of Americans, organizers, advocates, and activists should be ready to exploit this political weakness, and make rural SNAP a key 2024 campaign priority.
The following table documents SNAP participation and spending in rural states (defined as states with a rural population share greater than 30%).
During the Farm Bill debate, House and Senate Agriculture Committee Republicans will likely be calling for deep cuts to SNAP, along with increased farm program and crop insurance support. Democrats tend to support increased SNAP as well as additional farm program budgets.
The following table documents the number of SNAP recipients compared with the number of farms in the 21 rural states. It is important to note that the number of SNAP recipients outnumbers the number of farms in these rural states by ten times. Currently, the Republican-aligned, agribusiness-friendly Farm Bureau and checkoff-funded commodity groups are perceived to have incredible political power in the Farm Bill debate, but these organizations clearly punch above their weight. The number of potential SNAP voters far outweighs the farm vote (Heads up: The Cocklebur will be parsing potential divisions within the “farm vote” in two weeks).
In terms of political strategy, prioritizing rural SNAP also has the potential to increase voter registration and participation. Campaign donors could have a significant impact by making large investments in SNAP-focused rural organizing. Many of these rural states are ripe for organizing in this regard, as they tend to have lower-than-average voter participation rates.
The Daily Yonder created a county-level voter participation map to visualize this data. It is clear that rural voter participation rates have room for growth in the Great Plains, Appalachia, and the South.
Conclusion
SNAP is an enormously beneficial anti-hunger program in rural America. As the future of SNAP will be a key negotiating point between Republicans and Democrats in the 2023 Farm Bill debate, grassroots organizations could register and mobilize hundreds of thousands of rural voters against Republican proposals to cut SNAP. Political campaigns and donors should recognize the clear opportunity to protect and expand SNAP in rural states, and should prioritize and center these issues in the 2024 election.
For an example of an elected official using SNAP as an effective political issue, watch Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) make important points about the existing complexities of applying for SNAP in Maine.
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.