Thursday, January 7, 2010

The two states with the biggest political differences:

A while ago, I wrote that the electoral behavior of Oregon and Washington is fairly similar, which is not exactly a gigantic surprise.

I decided to look for the two states that have the least electoral similarity, and I probably have found them:

Vermont and South Carolina. Throughout much of its history, Vermont was a very Republican state, and South Carolina was a very Democratic state. (This may come as a surprise to some of you.) Since 1992, this has of course reversed. But in their history, Vermont and South Carolina have usually had gigantic differences in electoral margins.
In fact (and this is probably the only states this can be said of), Vermont and South Carolina have never voted for a Democratic candidate in the same election).
Notice that these numbers are margins, not total votes. Notice that South Carolina is up around the 98 mark as a margin. During the years of the "solid south", South Carolina had elections with numbers like 99%-1%. Vermonts Republican margins were usually pretty big, but not quite THAT big.
So, when do you think Vermont and South Carolina will finally agree?

2 comments:

  1. Just a wild guess: I think Vermont and South Caroline will agree when the former has pecan and peach groves, and the latter sheep farms and a corresponding artisan cheese industry.

    Oh, dear - it's time to put on comment monitoring, huh? You never know when a wise-ass will show up with silly blather.

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  2. Here in South Vermonlina, we have our traditional diet of Ben & Jerry's Peach/Maple Ice Cream.

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