Governor Larry Rhoden has often touted Trump policies as transforming rural health care. A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Associated Press finds that most rural voters see Trump policies making rural health care worse:
More than half (54%) of rural voters disapprove of President Trump’s handling of health care, and views on the impact of his administration’s policies on areas like health care costs, Medicare, Medicaid, and the availability of health care are largely negative. For example, by more than a 2-to-1 margin, rural voters say the Trump administration’s policies have had a negative rather than a positive impact on their own health care costs (41% vs. 17%). Still, the Republican Party has a narrow advantage over the Democratic Party in rural voters’ trust to handle the cost of health care (33% vs. 28%), though about three in ten Republicans (28%) say they trust neither party on health care costs, rising to six in ten (59%) among independent rural voters. [Alex Montero, Shannon Schumacher, Julian Montalvo III, Ashley Kirzinger, and Liz Hamel, “KFF/AP Rural Voters Survey,” Kaiser Family Foundation, 2026.09.23].
That persistent and apparently mistaken trust in Republicans to fix health care costs may stem from lingering ignorance of Trumpublicans’ cuts to the socialized medicine rural voters value:
The overwhelming majority (92%) of rural voters say Medicaid is important for people in their local community and half have had a personal or family connection to the program at some point in their lives. However, awareness of future cuts to the program included in President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is low among rural voters, with most saying they don’t know whether the legislation increases or decreases future federal spending on Medicaid. Despite this, nearly twice as many rural voters say Trump’s health care policies have had a negative rather than a positive impact on Medicaid (44% vs. 24%). While rural Republican voters are more likely to say the impact of Trump’s policies on Medicaid has been positive (40%), a similar share (43%) say they have had no impact [Montero et al., 2026.09.23].
Rural voters are definitely feeling the impact of Trump hackery on the Affordable Care Act:
Most (57%) rural voters who purchase their own health coverage (10% of rural voters overall) say the administration’s health care policies have negatively impacted their health care costs, higher than the share of rural voters with employer sponsored insurance or Medicare. This likely reflects the impact of rising costs for those who purchased coverage through the ACA Marketplaces following the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits last year [Montero et al., 2026.09.23].
Governor Rhoden won’t wake up to the harm his boss and his party are doing to rural health care; let’s hope enough rural voters will wake up to the cause of their suffering and demand more situationally aware management at the ballot box this November.