Cameron Wimpy
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Cameron Wimpy

Cameron Wimpy

Associate Professor & Chair

Government, Law & Policy • Arkansas State University

I am associate professor of political science and chair of Government, Law & Policy at Arkansas State University with interests in comparative public administration, election administration, political economy, political methodology, and rural public policy. Since 2022, I have also served as the founding director of the Institute for Rural Initiatives. I am an affiliate faculty with the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at A-State.

I formerly served as the Research Director in the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, where I managed applied research on the scientific study of elections. I was previously an affiliate faculty member with the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science. I grew up on Crowley’s Ridge in the Arkansas Delta.

Featured · Forthcoming

Rural Election Administration in the Lower Mississippi Delta

with William P. McLean · Journal of Election Administration Research & Practice, 2026

Drawing on interviews with local election officials across 17 counties in six states, this study traces how rural election administration actually runs in the Delta. We elucidate the communication gaps left by shrinking local media, the fight to recruit poll workers amid population decline, the vote-by-mail and bipartisan-balance challenges. We also discuss the quieter advantages of small populations, high local trust, and strong federal and state support.

Cite

Study area map of the Lower Mississippi Delta. The 17 sample counties spanning six states are highlighted in green against a gray background of the surrounding region. 17 counties · 6 states · study area

Less than one-fifth of the voting-age population lives in rural areas, yet nearly two-thirds of U.S. elections are administered in rural jurisdictions.

From the Institute · Current work

How rural America shifted between 2013 and 2023

Of 3,219 U.S. counties, 553 became more rural and 184 became less rural over the past decade, as measured by USDA’s Rural–Urban Continuum Codes. Counties shade darker for higher RUCC; arrows mark every county whose code changed.

In progress

Map of the continental United States. Counties are shaded in a green sequence from light beige (metropolitan) to deep green (most rural). Small arrows overlay counties whose RUCC code changed between 2013 and 2023: green arrows pointing up where counties became more rural, amber arrows pointing down where they became less rural.

How rural America shifted between 2013 and 2023 — county-level change in USDA Rural–Urban Continuum Codes

Data: USDA Economic Research Service, Rural–Urban Continuum Codes (2013, 2023). Source: scripts/rucc-map.R. Last rendered: April 2026.

Latest

Recent writing

Building a Programmatic Academic CV with Quarto and Typst
9 min
Apr 5, 2026

Asking for a Letter of Recommendation
2 min
Jun 22, 2023

New publication on spatial-x models
1 min
Jun 22, 2023
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Cameron Wimpy
Associate Professor & Chair
Government, Law & Policy
Arkansas State University

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