If people in any place yearn to be made great again, it’s in rural America

The USA TODAY Network is spending time in eight counties in eight states, exploring the key electoral themes that could decide this fall’s election. Each week from now until the election, we will feature a different one. The series has so far looked at Waukesha County in Wisconsin, Chester County in Pennsylvania, Wayne County in Michigan and Maricopa County​ in Arizona. Today: Union County in Iowa.

CRESTON, Iowa — On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Nellie Kretz piddled around her empty shop organizing painting supplies.

Down the street, a clothing store is open, but empty. Same goes for a furniture store. Kretz ticks off the latest losses in Creston’s central business district: A bakery closed in November. A department store closed in December. And an antique store called it quits in January.

“Our uptown is struggling,” she said. “You can tell by walking around.”

Declining sales at her Old Market Primitives & Antiques store has her rethinking the business. She’s selling off her stock of antiques to focus on evening arts and crafts parties, where small groups paint $30-a-pop decorative wooden door hangers together.

Kretz doesn’t entirely blame Washington, D.C., for the state of the local economy in this southwest Iowa community of about 7,800 people. But she suspects the presidential election is spreading uncertainty and fear in an already struggling community.

“I don’t think the political debate is helping,” she said. “People just aren’t spending money.”

Here in Union County, it’s not hard to find people like Kretz who are weary of the Obama years. She plans to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump in November because she thinks he’s better suited to address the needs of the average American than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

While not as scrutinized as the suburban and urban voting blocs, the rural vote is considered a key slice of the Republican base. And it has been reliably conservative in recent presidential elections.

This bloc will be crucial if Trump seeks to stack up electoral votes in swing states like Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin — states where rural dwellers make up a sizable chunk of the electorate (more than 30%).

“It’s not often pivotal in terms of being the component of the electorate that people go, ‘oh because of that,’ ” said Seth McKee, an associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University who studies rural voting patterns. “But if we think about presidential elections and the long-term pattern of where the GOP has been successful, they’ve been able to marry the northern rural vote with the southern rural vote.”

People here see a link between their own pocketbooks and the nation’s political leadership. And in a community that few describe as flourishing, many are longing for a change in Washington. A big one.

“I think we are ready for change, and I think we need it,” said Sharon Hower, a retiree of Creston’s Bunn-O-Matic plant. “I don’t agree with everything Mr. Trump says, but I think he deserves a chance.”

Hower, a registered Republican, met on a recent day with other retired women in a downtown coffee shop overlooking the town’s historic train station and rail yard. They sipped on steaming cups of coffee and ate thick pieces of peanut butter toast.

Talk turned to how the town, like many others, has seen better days. Hower cited problems in the schools, declining population and closing stores as a few problems in Creston.

“In general, we just are not what we used to be,” she said. “It’s all trickle down. It’s affected everybody.”

She doesn’t know whether Trump can fix things here. But she knows Clinton can’t. She said she was “disgusted” with the former secretary of State, whom she distrusts.

“I don’t know what he can do, but I’d like to give him a chance to see,” Hower said. “Because, like I said, we’re on a downhill slide, and anything he could do would be an improvement.”

Such attitudes, experts say, should come as no surprise. Because if people in any place yearn to be made great again, it’s in rural America.

Clinton has promised to build on the achievements of the Obama era, offering policy recommendations to improve health care, the economy and taxes. Trump, on the other hand, paints a darker picture of a limping nation in need of more radical change.

That’s a message that seems tailor-made for rural America.

In small towns throughout the heartland, people reminisce about better days. Days when downtown storefronts were occupied and humming.

While the rural landscape has been changing for decades, many people sense a fresh set of threats. Facing dwindling dollars and students, community schools continue to close and consolidate. Good-paying manufacturing jobs have vanished amid a wave of globalization and automation.

And rural America has accumulated decades of population loss as the young flee to metropolitan areas. In 1950, 36% of Americans lived in rural areas, according to census figures; by 2000, only 21% of people lived in rural areas.

It's perhaps most serious in communities dependent on agriculture. Iowa is the nation’s leading producer of corn, soybeans and pork. And here in the Corn Belt, local merchants, implement dealers and restaurateurs alike suffer alongside farmers when the ag economy slumps.

American farmers are set to harvest their largest-ever crops of soybeans and corn this year, yet stubbornly low prices mean many of the nation's 3.2 million farmers will yield narrow profits, if any. Farm-dependent communities already have suffered decades of decline as efficiencies have made farms larger and farmers less numerous. Since 1900, the number of U.S farms has fallen by 63%, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, while the average farm size has grown by 67%.

Those who remain tend to larger farms and are thus wealthier on average than in previous decades, said Wayne Steger, a political science professor at Chicago’s DePaul University who researches the American presidency.

“But their communities have gone down and lost population. They all know friends and neighbors who have gone under,” he said. “So that weighs on their perception of reality as to where things are.”

Steger, a native of rural Iowa, said rural voters are less likely to vote based on their own finances. Much more influential is their perception of how their community is faring. So he expects the change-oriented Republican platform to play well across rural areas in November.

“These communities are nowhere near as vibrant as they were 50 years ago. And they’re older,” he said. “That message is absolutely is going to resonate. And Donald Trump a little more so because he is anti-establishment.”

In his quest for the Republican nomination, Trump had mixed success in rural America: He took heavily rural states like Alabama, South Dakota and South Carolina. Yet Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won rural heavily rural Maine, Wyoming and Wisconsin.

Religious and social issues play more in rural areas, where people tend to be less educated and less wealthy. That’s a problem for Trump, who lacks the religious bona fides of other prominent Republicans.

But McKee, of Texas Tech, said Trump’s economic talk of making America great will endear him to rural voters.

“I don’t think he’s going to hemorrhage the rural vote,” McKee said. “… If he slips with rural voters, then it would be a bigger story that he’s slipping with everyone.”

An August NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found Trump outperforming Clinton in Iowa’s rural western counties (51% of those polled favored Trump, compared with 31% for Clinton). Likewise, Clinton supporters outnumbered Trump in the Des Moines area and the state’s eastern cities.

In that national poll, 55% of rural voters supported Trump, compared with only 27% for Clinton. Four years ago, Republican nominee Mitt Romney had 59% of support from rural voters polled, while Obama had 42% support.

Tom Moore, a Republican member of the Iowa House whose district includes Union County, said rural voters are drawn to Trump’s anti-establishment bent.

“I think the mentality and psyche of a rural Iowan is definitely different than that of an urban Chicagoan or a New Yorker,” he said. “And I think our values are different than those values.”

He believes rural Iowans place a different value on work ethic.

“I’m an ex-teacher and I hear from my ex-students all the time about how they’ll go to urban areas and how employers in urban areas really like to get Iowa kids because of their work ethic,” he said. “I just think that farm, rural life is a different lifestyle that a lot of people don’t understand.”

Jeff Mostek, owner of Creston Farm and Home Supply, can list all the ways government regulations are hurting his customers, and therefore his business.

He can no longer sell rat baits in large quantities. A milk replacer for calves he sells will now require a veterinarian’s prescription. And an EPA mandate in 2009 required all gas cans to be spring-loaded — which Mostek says also doubled the price.

“It’s just things that we really should be paying attention to, we don’t,” said Mostek, 58. “We worry more about the gas can.”

Mostek, a registered Republican, is leaning toward Trump but is still unsure about many of his policies. He believes Trump is more likely to provide regulatory relief than Clinton.

“I think it’s not just rural America. It’s the whole place,” he said. “We’re tired of the same people running the show the way it is. Nothing seems to improve.”

Wayne Hanson, 53, will vote for Trump. But as a self-described “die-hard” conservative, he said he’s still having a hard time with the nominee.

“For me to jump on that bandwagon and be gung ho about it, I struggle with that,” he said. “My business has thrived more under conservative values. And I just don’t understand his values yet.”

Hanson owns RE Lewis Refrigeration, a Creston-based business that helps build food processing plants across the country. He said Democratic leadership has pushed his taxes higher, and he blamed Obamacare for creating “an absolute wreck” of the health care system.

He likes Trump’s business background. And he believes the billionaire has a better understanding of small-business issues.

“Around here in the Midwest, small business is all we have,” he said. “In the large cities, they’re second. Out here, we’re first.”

It’s not an easy time to run a business in a place like Union County, said 80-year-old Edward Thompson.

“It’s like all the small towns. It’s dying,” he said. “It’s hard to say that.”

He runs a combination furniture store and bicycle repair shop in downtown Creston. Thompson, an independent, finds Trump’s brazenness refreshing.

“He doesn’t mess around,” he said. “If he doesn’t like what you’re saying, he’ll tell you so. And I think that’s what we need — someone who will stand up to people and talk back.”

Yet he doesn’t have high hopes for meaningful change.

“It doesn’t make any difference who’s in there,” he said. “They make a lot of promises that they can’t keep.”

For all the talk of the way things once were, Union County still has signs of quaintness and vibrancy.

An old railroad town, Creston was named for its geography. It sits at the highest point along the BNSF railroad between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

Union County, now home to about 12,500 people, has never again reached its 1900 population high of nearly 20,000. But it outperforms its peer counties in Iowa in terms of retail sales and population stability. The county seat serves as a regional hub for retail, education and medical services, drawing visitors from smaller outlying counties.

Creston’s 117-year-old train depot still frames downtown. The railroad still employs about 130 people here, but the well-preserved depot is now home to city offices, a community center and intricate model trains and diorama of the town.

Around here, the word coffee doubles as a verb. Each weekday, various groups meet for daily coffee and conversation around town. Several rotate through the café housed at the Creston Livestock Auction.

At 6 a.m., it’s mostly farmers. At 8 a.m., it’s local business leaders. At 9 a.m., it’s retirees.

These are the sort of intimate gatherings that would naturally foster political gab. Yet owner Tom Frey said political talk has been quiet around the café.

“I don’t hear any scuttlebutt one way or another,” he said. “It’s not a huge topic.”

Frey suspects that’s because so many people are disengaged, unhappy with choosing between Clinton and Trump. He didn’t want to state his own preference, but had no trouble dumping on both candidates.

“When this country was founded, we had half a million people and we had a Jefferson, a Washington and a Benjamin Franklin. Now we’ve got 350 million Americans and we get these two to pick from?” he said. “It’s sad.”

Union County is proof that not all Americans are phased by the constantly talking heads and ever-changing presidential polls.

“I haven’t really heard anything,” said Rebecca Colburn, who owns a western-themed bar in town.

That’s unusual in a state that cherishes both the substance and spectacle that accompanies its first-in-the-nation caucuses.

In late 2015 and early 2016, hardly a day went by when a Democratic or Republican presidential contender wasn’t visiting a local diner, high school gymnasium or county barbecue.

Ronald Riley, one of the three Republican members of the Union County Board of Supervisors, said the presidential race is now defined by disdain for both candidates.

“This is a different election process this year,” he said. “Rather than maybe voting for a candidate, you’re voting against the other candidate. And to me that’s not the way you should make you decision.”

Historically low unfavorable ratings for Clinton and Trump has leaders of both parties here worried about turnout in November.

Union County isn’t as stark red as many other rural areas, though Republicans outnumber Democrats: Among registered voters, 44% are unaffiliated with a party, 35% are Republicans and 21% are Democrats.

Obama carried the county in 2008 and 2012, when voter turnout topped 73% — about on par with Iowa's statewide turnout, which ranked among the top 10 in the country. Yet neither Trump nor Clinton won the county in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders did.

Union County Democratic Chairwoman Marcia Fulton said she believes Sanders supporters will probably show up to vote, but they may not vote for Clinton.

“Some of our best workers have not been as enthusiastic as moving over to volunteer for Hillary,” she said. “I don’t think we're going to get them in the trenches, which is a problem for me.”

Fulton caucused for former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley but quickly got behind Clinton.

She understands voters' frustration but believes history will prove Obama a better president than his approval ratings do. And she thinks not enough blame is placed on the nation’s do-nothing Congress. Still, she has ideas on how Clinton could better connect with voters here: She should be more aggressive in calling out Trump.

“I think she is more filtered because of the years and years that the Clintons have been targeted,” she said. “You become very skittish. And I think she needs to not do that. She needs to stand up and answer all these questions down the line.”

Joe Owens couldn’t be farther from Fulton on the ideological spectrum. The chairman of the county Republican party has come around to Trump after supporting former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee early on.

“It’s getting very discouraging …” he said. “I see people and talk to people that aren’t willing to vote because they don’t like the candidates.”

Owens, a retired railroad worker, said he’s using patriotism in urging local Republicans not to cede their voting privilege. He said this election is probably the most important in the nation’s history.

He fears the nation has moved away from its “Christian moral values.” He said Obama has spread racial division. He believes a Clinton White House would not only be harmful, but apocalyptic.

“No society, no government has lasted forever,” he said. “But it would be a crying shame if this one couldn’t make it past 250 years.”

To report this series, the USA TODAY Network identified eight counties around the country that represent key voting groups in the November election, from blue-collar and college-educated voters to rural voters and Latinos. Journalists spent time with voters, political observers and experts in these eight counties — blue, red and purple — talking about the presidential candidates, the issues and the importance of this year’s election.

• Week 1: GOP “base” voters in Waukesha County, Wis.
• Week 2: White, college-educated voters in Chester County, Pa.
• Week 3: African-American voters in Wayne County, Mich.
• Week 4: Latino voters in Maricopa County, Ariz.
• Week 5: Rural voters in Union County, Iowa

In the coming weeks, look for our coverage of the following counties: Larimer County, Colo.; Clark County, Ohio; and Hillsborough County, Fla.

The Deciders: A look at 8 key counties that are going to help decide this election