Is Josh Hawley rural?

Josh Hawley is the junior senator from Missouri; he defeated Claire McCaskill (D) in 2018.  Hawley has attracted attention most recently for his role in disputing the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election.  On January 6, just before insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol, Hawley famously raised his fist in an apparent show of strength and solidarity with them.   So, Hawley has aligned himself with populists and often plays the anti-urban, heartland card.  Since elected, Hawley has lived in suburban northern Virginia while using the Missouri address of his sister in Ozark.  

But is Hawley rural and can he authentically play the "rural card"?  Well, Frank Morris of Missouri Public Radio considered that issue in this story for NPR.  For that story, Morris visited Hawley's hometown.  Here are some excerpts: 

Josh Hawley sets himself up as an antidote to cosmopolitan elites who he says are ruining America. Hawley draws his rural credibility from growing up in Lexington, an old Missouri River town of about 4,500 people. Hawley's family moved to Lexington in the early '80s when Josh was a toddler.

JIM KENNEY: His mother and father were salt of the Earth, widely respected, beloved.

MORRIS: Jim Kenney is a fifth-generation Lexington resident. He says young Hawley stood out.

KENNEY: I can remember my kids coming home one time and saying, Josh Hawley told us all he's going to be president someday. And that was probably - he was in the sixth - fifth or sixth grade at the time. So people remember that around here.

MORRIS: Another thing people remember - when Hawley finished eighth grade, his parents sent him off to a Catholic school an hour away in Kansas City. For many in Lexington, that was the last they saw of Josh Hawley. He went on to Stanford and Yale and eventually came back to town to launch his political career.

* * *

MORRIS: In [a] campaign ad for his 2018 Senate race, Hawley is strolling by the picturesque old courthouse downtown. It's beautiful imagery, but it did not sit well with everyone here. Tim and Allyson Crosson, music teachers who worked with Hawley, say the ad was disingenuous.

TIM CROSSON: He tries to portray himself as a good old boy from rural Missouri and my constituents are all these rural people. And they don't buy into it at all.

Another story about Hawley and his relationship to Lexington and its residents is here.