Red states (Republicans) and blue states (Democrats) - Is there a correlation with average income / gross national product per capita?

Correlation/causation:

“Blue states” tend to have larger urban populations (if you look by county, you see this quite clearly), while “Red States” are more rural, in general.

Urban populations = higher average income (due, in part, to higher cost of living)
Rural populations = lower cost of living, etc.

Kicks Alabama to the top of the list… Oops!

Counterexample: Michigan. Highest unemployment in the country. It isn’t 2007 any more.

As a rule, I agree with you, but I think you’ll find that education plays at least as big a role as urban concentration. Better educated people tend to make more money, and tend also to be more liberal. Why do you think the Republicans shoot down every education initiative there is?

Are those average individual or household incomes?

…you kind of answered your own question there…

According to some researchers, political competitiveness in a state leads to higher employment rates and quality of life. According to this study of university students, not only is the proportion of democratic legislators in state government related to income (higher income = more Democratic legislators), but it is also related to IQ (higher IQ = more Democratic legislators). This is true except in states with low political participation, where higher IQ is related to more conservative legislators.

In the latter study, one should note that the correlation does not tell us which way the causal relationship goes, nor does it tell us if the correlation is generalizable to the general population of the United States.

Here’s another site that pretty much confirms the hypothesis of this question. The analysis looked at data from 2004. They describe the data as follows:

These are the 15 states that have the lowest GSP. Not surprisingly, all but one are red. 15 of the 19 blue states are in the top 25, and if you look at the average GSPs, you see where the money is coming from.

It seems counter-intuitive. You’d think that the wealthier people are, the more they’d like Republican policies, however the states with highest gsp are much more likely to be blue states. The finding that IQ is related to higher income is related to likelihood of electing Democratic legislators is less counter-intuitive. One would think that more educated people would be more likely to be Democrats. They are more likely to understand the long term consequences of public policy.

I suspect there is a psychological component to this as well. People who are more cooperative (more socialistic) tend to have better economies and more income. We all do better when income is more evenly distributed. People who do not believe in cooperation—people who believe more in total self-reliance—are more likely to vote Republican and also, it seems more likely to have a poorer population, on average. I would guess that the income distribution in these states is much more unequally distributed.

This could fit (in a reverse logic kind of way) with the idea that rich and poor people are less likely to believe that income is related to their own efforts. Since income is related to chance (not government policy), they prefer government to be out of their lives. They may be shooting themselves in their collective feet, but they probably figure that if they can’t get rich, they don’t deserve to get rich. It’s just a matter of luck, anyway. Besides which, since they tend to be dumber, they just don’t get the relationship between higher taxes and more income. They just see it as a purely selfish thing—if the taxes are lower, they get to keep more of their income—it’s short term thinking, but it makes sense to people with lower IQs.

Here is a map, by county, of Republican/Democrat majorities in 2008.

Here is a map, by county, of percentage of population with less than 9 years of education.

@cprevite – household income

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

I have no statistics, but I do have personal experience, which probably equals anecdotal evidence, and can be taken anyway you like.

Iowa has fewer large cities of population, hence it is more rural. Besides Des Moines, Davenport and Iowa City, there are few cities of any real size. Iowa has no professional sports teams, and the majority of the people that live there are in the agricultural field. Farmers are by and large more conservative than city folks. Iowa is also mostly Christian, as near as I can tell. Farmers are wealthy, to a degree, but their $$$ is tied up in equipment, and is not a liquid asset. Iowa is a red state.

Illinois has Chicago, Peoria, The QCs, Rockford, Champaine/Urbana and Springfield. All are good to large sized cities. There are more people with access to progressive ideals. Illinois has at least three professional sports teams, (more if you consider hockey and other less popular sports). Despite our very corrupt Democratic govt, IL has more options as far as jobs go. IL is a blue state.

Is there any correlation between the two, and why one is red and the other is blue? I don’t know, but there seems to be a pattern here, at least on the surface. Great Question, I just wish I were more educated to be able to add something you find useful to this discussion.

@evelyns_pet_zebra – you do know that Obama carried Iowa by nearly 10 points, right? Or that they legalized gay marriage. I wish all “red” states were like that.

California was shown to be split right down the middle, the long way, with the blue votes in the large, coastal cities, and the red half in the rural less populated east half of the state.

@dalepetrie yes, and i have no good explanation why, because if you talk to the people in my age group in Iowa, they are mostly Christian conservatives. Al I can think of is that the young folks there are voting more, and moving away less.

Not all that long ago, Republican states were blue and Democrat states were red. Somewhere along the line, it got changed.

I think that the less you know the more conservative. There is a good reason for that too. When you operate in ignorance you are afraid of change, you don’t understand new ideas so you wait for your pundit to tell you what it means. Of course if your news source is Fox then it is a double whammy for the ignorant conservative. I don’t think that ignorance correlates closely to low I.Q. after all some very intelligent preachers preach against evolution and non-biblical learning institutions.

One of my daughters lived in Missouri. Missouri has a notoriously bad public school system, hence a higher than average hard-right-wing conservatives. In fact, the town she lived in was Rush Limbaugh’s home town and, amazingly, they were proud of him.

Ignorant people typically make less money also, so it all comes together. Poor schools, lack of education, low income, more conservative.

I graduated from a parochial school and considered myself conservative. In fact I stayed a Republican all the way until Reagan ran for president. His campaign coincided with my progress through higher education. The more education the more in-depth I looked into issues. The more I learned the more I realized that there are better ways to solve problem. Incidentally, my income also increased.