There is near-consensus in the existing literature that people in rural areas lack support for their existing political systems. Research has pointed to higher rates of populist voting, protests like the Gilets Jaunes and, especially, to survey evidence on lower political trust and satisfaction with democracy in rural areas. However, the latter is based exclusively on data from recent periods and, even then, from only a few survey projects, giving only a partial impression of where, when and to what extent rural-urban divides in political support have developed. Using harmonised data from the Survey Data Recycling Project (1973-2017), we test for urban-rural patterns of institutional trust and satisfaction with democracy (SWD). We posit three competing possibilities: urban-rural divides have either ‘emerged’ (i.e. no divide existed historically, but now rural areas have lower support), ‘reversed’ (i.e. rural areas were historically more supportive, and now they are less so), or ‘frozen’ (i.e. rural areas were historically less supportive, and still are). Results suggest clear support for ‘reversal’, as rural areas exhibit higher political support in the 1970s/1980s and lower political support by the 2000s/2010s. The next steps will attempt to account for the emergence of this rural deficit in political support, testing theories related to economic disadvantage, cultural change and the relative political power of ruralites and urbanites.