The Grocery Cart Divide: How Rural and Urban America Sort Themselves | The Daily Yonder

We hear constantly that rural and urban America have grown apart. The 2024 presidential map made the point in the usual way, a sea of red countryside

We hear constantly that rural and urban America have grown apart. The 2024 presidential map made the point in the usual way, a sea of red countryside around dense blue cities, with roughly 90% of counties shifting toward Donald Trump. That divide is real, and it is well documented. What gets less attention is how far down into daily life it reaches. Over the past several months I went looking for it not in voting records but in grocery searches, brand footprints, and the small choices people make without thinking of them as political at all. I tested 21 consumer preferences, retail…

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