I dunno, man, I grew up "rural" and even in my most-educated-in-the-nation we-import-our-liberals-from-actual-New-York-City mountain town, my "conservatives" were actual Swastika-tattooed skinheads. More than that? Denver Nazis and Phoenix Nazis are fucking pussies compared to Albuquerque Nazis and Albuquerque Nazis don't hold a candle to rural Rio Grande Valley Nazis. "Pretty conservative" is a gradient and let's be honest - if the guy to the right of your politics moves to the hinterlands, if he's to the left of actual Nazis then the hinterlands get more liberal.
That is true, the general trend of the area will be towards a more liberal stance. However, will that make the conservative-but-ashamed, "oh I don't watch the news it's not edifying" crowd vote Democrat? The skinheads certainly won't be changing their affiliations. And our binary voting structure seems to preclude any sort of change aside from R --> D or R --> no vote. FWIW I have little exposure to truly rural areas outside of the South.
From my lived experience with the knuckle draggers who are holding our species back they were fiercely political during the trump era and are now back to the "awe shucks well I just don't watch the news it doesn't praise and uplift God but gonna vote Republican and disown my kids who don't do the same." When they aren't in active majority power they play at humble and meek as a survival tactic. The tone shift from the Sunday before January 6th to the Sunday after January 6th in the sermons given by my in laws pastor was striking.
Most of the actual skinheads I've run with were politically apathetic. Until Trump. That mutherfucker got the bumper stickers out, got the pride flyin' on Instagram. If we're lucky, the lack of actual accelerationist white supremacists in the cabinet will return them to not giving a fuck in November.
67% last time. 61% in 2016 which basically says "vote as if your life depends on it" causes a ten percent increase in the base rate. Nonetheless, yes, the more disaffected the racists, the better the odds for progressives.