Fair enough, I was mostly reacting to
@Cherico claim that the midwest represented the Political Heart of America, which speaks more to pre-eminent ness rather than relevantness. Though relevant is a fairly slipperly term in this kind of discussion. They exist, but I'm not sure how relevant they are as their own entity: I get more of a sense of the midwest being a collection of signifigant cultures, rather than a power block in and of themselves.
The midwest doesn't really seem to be a political entity in the same way New England, the West Coast, or the Old South were who are all mostly coherent enough with each other to march to the beat of the same drum. Ohio and Chicago do not strike me as blood brothers of especially close political of social bonds.
In some sort of Balkanization set up, I would expect the Midwest to, well, be the equivalent to the balkans, a sort of middle ground fought over by the more culturally and politically unfied New England to the East and West Coast to the, well, West. Maybe with some Southern group, depending on if Texas does its own thing or groups up with the rest of the deeper south.
As to the Rural/urban divide, Its probably not as significant in Blue states as many imagine: for example, look at
New York in 2016:
So, as you can see most of the state outside the big cities did go Red. However, only one county, Wyoming County with 40k people voted heavily conservative in the 70%+ range. 12 counties were in the 60-70% range. That means, out of 62 counties, democrats represent at least 40% of the voting public in 49, or 79% of counties.
40% is a respectable margin to maintain a ruling power base from, and if the majority tried to move against the Democratic loyalist county government, the massive numerical edge of the democratic overall population (almost 2-1 overall) gives them plenty of resources to surge to troublespots in the countryside as they flair up.
California's in a similar boat where the countryside is less overwhelmingly blue, but not particularly red:
Only 2 counties are 70%+ Republican, another 3 in the 60-70% range. Thus, out of 58 counties in California democrats represent at least 40% of the voting population in 90% of the counties.
In the deep blue strongholds, Urban/rural is probably going to be a fairly minor issue.