What a great question. I don't know for sure, but I do have an opinion.
I think it may have to do with the fact that people who live in rural or less populated areas tend to be more independent and self-reliant. While large cities tend to require people to be more dependent on the services being provided.
It also appears to me that people who are Republican tend to want less government regulation while Democrats tend to think the government should provide for their needs.
I don't believe this is true in all cases, but some Democrats think that all problems can be solved by passing another law.
As a conservative centrist, I often get annoyed when I see Democrats passing what I call feel-good, not do-good laws. What I mean is, Democrats, see a problem and feel that something must be done. Rather than analyze and address the real problem because it is complex or difficult, they quickly pass a law and then say see, we did something and they feel good about it. Even if that law doesn't really address the problem.
A good example of this is the straw ban in Calif. The U.S. is responsible for less than .2% of all the plastic waste in the oceans and straws for a minuscule amount of that. So this law does nothing to address the problem, but at least they can feel good and say we did something. When in reality, nothing was done to address the real problem. In fact, sometimes the laws they pass have consequences that are worst then the problem they were trying to fix. Welfare and "The War On Poverty" is an area the Democrats have done this and failed miserably. In fact, they have actually created more problems longer-lasting problems than they fixed.
There are many, many more examples of feel-good, not do-good laws that have been passed. Gun violence is another area that is a complete failure. Gun control is not the problem, we need to address why people are killing other people, not how.
