Posted on 03/29/2011 3:04:33 PM PDT by Mozilla
America is an increasingly conservative nation, by ideology and by political affiliation, according to polling results from the Gallup Organization. While conservatives have long outnumbered liberals and moderates across the U.S., the study sheds new light on state-by-state patterns. The map below shows the pattern for the 50 states.
Mississippi is the first state with more than 50% conservative identification, with Idaho, Alabama, Wyoming, and Utah approaching that level, and Arkansas, South Carolina, North Dakota, Louisiana, and South Dakota (the rest of the top ten conservative states) 45% or higher. Conservatives outnumber liberals in even the most liberal-leaning states (excluding the District of Columbia): Vermont, (30.7% conservative to 30.5% liberal), Rhode Island (29.9% to 29.3%), and Massachusetts (29.9% to 28.0%).
Political commentators have long pointed to underlying social and economic sorting that underpins this growing conservative/ liberal divide. But what factors account for the growing conservatism of Americans and American states?
With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, I decided to take a look. We ran a simple correlation analysis on the Gallup poll numbers, comparing conservative identification to a variety of key economic, demographic, and cultural factors by state. As always, our analysis only points to associations between variables; we do not make any claims about causation and note that other factors that we have not looked at might come into play. Still, a number of intriguing findings cropped up.
Not surprisingly, states with more conservatives are considerably more religious than liberal-leaning states. The correlation between conservative political affiliation and religion (the share of state population for which religion is an important part of daily life) is .63.
Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
That last graph just kills the idea that conservatism is for the rich.
The only reason FL is “average” is due to all the liberal yankees who have come down here and decided to stay to get away from the cold, primarily in central and south FL along the coasts. From Jacksonville west, with the exception of a few counties around tallahassee, we are solid red. The majority of the peninsula is solid red as well.
Liberal yankee go home........and stay there this time.
yes it does. Proves that it is not an ideology of the rich and powerful only. Rather more liberals are rich and in positions like universities and the such. The is why wall street actually went for idiot Obama. They wanted the policies Obama was offering.
North Carolina has yankee infestation also. My family is originally from there and last time I went back to the RTD area I felt like I was in Little Boston, not NC. Cary is now called the Containment Area for Relocating Yankees and NC is becoming the Taxachusetts of the South.
I absolutely agree and can relate personally about Fla. I grew up in Volusia County and my family all still lives there. When driving west on I-4 the minute one hits Deltona or Sanford it feels like any New England state, even with the tourists, not the Florida I grew up in.
Doesn’t take much to be conservative in Obamaland.
There are hardcore Communists and Socialists who think our government has gone too far....
Or, conversely, it demonstrates that liberal states have higher incomes because of big government policies that siphon tax money from other parts of the country into their coffers.
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Even blue states like Washington are trending more to the right.
When the census numbers came out most of the conservative parts of the state had grown by 8-18% since 2000.
The liberal cities: Seattle, Bremerton & Olympia had very limited growth hovering around 5%.
If we could run the foreigners from the northeast out of NC, that would go a long way toward returning NC to the conservative fold.
Both my wife and I are both from Raleigh and both of us graduated from UNC back in 1980. I remember when Cary was hardly bigger than a cow pasture and the other thing out there was MacGregor Downs.
You could not pay me enough to live up there now. The cost of living is astronomical and Raleigh is HUGE, not to mention, it is being overrun with yankee libs. Now that both my parents are gone I really have no reason go to home, except to see my inlaws, both of whom are now in failing health as well.
My brother lives with his family in Greenville, NC and my sister moved out to San Fransickness for a job. She is a conservative island in a sea of liberals but she is managing somehow.
No surprise there. Conservatives worship God; Liberals worship government.
Alaska is rated in the middle also. The problem here is left leaning people from California that move to Alaska to get away from the taboos of society to practice their lifestyle out in the bush. Most of which are pot smoking hippies that identify with the Libertarian party.
Richard Florida, who wrote the article, is the guy who argued that cities and states needed to attract young, single, largely gay members of the "creative class" in order to grow economically.
That wasn't quite right. Such people are more associated with consumption, rather than production. Countries need children and families to carry on and prosper. They also need basic manufacturing -- the sort of activity that Richard Florida's "creative class" doesn't dirty its hand with.
Given how much Florida got wrong about the American economy it's hard to give his political analysis much credence. More here.
We lived in Mt. Gilead, NC 40 yrs. ago in a lakeside cottage. It’s not too far from Raleigh; and we used to drive over to Raleigh to get KFC because there wasn’t any place to eat out in Mt. Gilead - well, except a burger joint in somebody’s house there. Raleigh didn’t seem all that big then, but I’m sure it grew. Discouraging to hear that the snotty liberals have taken over NC.
In the late 1960’s Raleigh had about 160,000 inside the city limits. Now it is probably 8 times that, and that does not include all the surrounding areas, like Garner, Apex, Cary, Zebulon, etc. That whole place has exploded. I think the metropolitan area is upwards of 1.5 million now. RTP is a big reason for it.
“The only reason FL is “average” is due to all the liberal yankees who have come down here...”
How about the poor immigrants who lean left? I know that some Cubans who were under Castro lean to the right and are conservative, but the majority of people in the Hispanic culture lean left.
The Conservative States of America. Or CSA for short. Kinda has a nice ring to it.
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