I live in Pennsylvania.
Yes, the rural areas report last.
I was watching results from the PA state website online and around 3am, I knew PA had gone for Trump.
That put him over the top and cemented his win.
This year, I fear we will not see all the vote totals reported due to the mail-in ballots that can arrive 3 days after the election.
Maybe he’ll reach 270 plus without Pa.
Actually rural areas report last pretty much everywhere, where they vote the old fashioned way on election day.
Simple reason - somebody have to haul the election results to the courthouse. When I served in rural Midwest it took us about an hour to take the results where they needed to be. So we were an hour later than the city vote, by design. And we were not that far!
In close fair vote, you can count on the fact that the last votes will be Republican! We had always final red wave. Not a huge one, but enough to swing close contests our way.
in 2016 I saw it in PA, MI, MN, IA, OH, FL even NV. I am sure it was in many other states. E.g. in Iowa Hillary was ahead until they counted about half of the vote. It was not even close at the end!
Only Va was the other way - Trump leading until almost the end. I am not sure why?
The main exception - when they suddenly start discovering piles of forgotten votes in the cities! That is the sign of foul play! In AZ that happened in 2018.