In response to the socioeconomic disruptions leading to polarized political geographies, the European Union has introduced policies to address spatial inequality and depopulation trends. However, we still know little about how effective these policies are at reversing economic trends and political polarization. To study this question, the present study leverages a targeted policy for rural and depopulated municipalities in Spain that incorporates a population threshold to determine eligibility to fund highly visible infrastructure projects. We implement a regression discontinuity design to observe potential demographic, economic, and political changes across eligible municipalities. Contrary to expectations, preliminary results suggest the funds have minimal impact on economic and demographic trends. At the same time, municipalities eligible for the funds slightly increase their support for the incumbent party. These seemingly conflicting findings may be explained by the delayed timing of the policy's socioeconomic effects, while the visibility of the projects may have had a more immediate political impact. The article discusses the implications of these findings for other countries implementing similar policies to improve regional cohesion.