Random question - liberal and conservative states?

[randomling]

Okay, so I'm vaguely considering something for a potential story. And I'm not looking here for "which states voted red and blue in the latest election", which I can look up - but for public perceptions within America, which is harder to track down without, you know, asking people. The question is this:

Which states are "liberal", and which are "conservative"? Not necessarily in terms of track record when it comes to representatives and presidential elections, but in terms of culture and what you would expect to find if you went there.

Here's what I have so far:

Liberal states are: California (despite the recent Prop 8 decision), Washington and Oregon (the "left coast" as I've heard it called), New England (Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire), the DC area (and possibly Maryland and Virginia by extension?), Minnesota and Wisconsin, Hawaii. "Possibles" in my head are Illinios and Michigan, New Jersey and Delaware, and maybe New York (city, if not state?).

Conservative states: the South (the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky), and the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas?). Texas. Utah. Alaska. "Possibles": Missouri and Arkansas (never sure where "South" ends and "Midwest" begins!), maybe Oklahoma (?), possibly the north-west (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho).

Anyone tell me any different or any more? Information on the "character" of any specific state or large city would also be useful, just in terms of how Americans see each state. I'm sort of looking for story locations, here.

Thanks!

Comments

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Liberal: California, New York, Massachusetts... and that's all I would label state-wide. Places like Washington, you have to be really careful about because they have big cities (Seattle) that are liberal, but the rest of the state is conservative. Most of the South (ie Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky) are all very conservative, with the exception of Austin, which is very liberal.

Michigan is a weird state. Don't try to set anything there because its make-up is sort of inconceivable.

Most of the north west is ultra-conservative except Colorado. Boulder is super liberal and Colorado has slowly been shifting liberal. Arizona is pretty conservative as well.

New England is hard to judge... I don't really think of Maine as a bastion of liberalism. Lots of rich people live in Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Washington DC is very liberal, but it's an independent city district and the government is there, so it doesn't really reflect on Maryland and Virginia. Arlington, VA is pretty liberal, but I know the rural parts of VA are fairly conservative, for example.

Illinois is generally a left-swinging state (both senators are democrats, the governor is a democrat, etc), but Chicago is super liberal and it's got 6 million people, so it kind of out-shouts the rest of the state, which is mostly farmers and mostly conservative.

[brighton-girl.livejournal.com]

Michigan is very liberal because of the Unions...the UAW (United Auto Workers) always recommends that those they represent vote democrat and liberal.

New York is also very liberal. Colorado is usually very conservative...but this year they went opposite.

[puszysty.livejournal.com]

You think so? Detroit most definitely is, but the west side is super conservative.

[brighton-girl.livejournal.com]

Absolutley. If you looked at counties reporting almost all were democrat. The state has the majority of the population in 3 areas Detroit/Ann Arbor, Lansing and Grand Rapids all liberal.

[puszysty.livejournal.com]

Well, most large cities are liberal, no matter what the state. Rural areas tend to be conservative.
Michigan is not really that liberal- Detroit is, but the rest of the state isn't.
Illinois is definitely liberal, if only because 1/2 the population lives in Chicago.

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

CT also has loads of not rich people :raises hand: and we are liberal, usually including the rich people. In fact we've got some really outspoken rich liberals. I think New England being liberal is probably fairly safe. Sure, there are exceptions but everyone has those and you're looking for an over all generality, yes?

Interestingly [at least to me] I talked this over with my Mom who is 27 years older than I am and initially she picked VERY different answers for many of these states. We talked about Yankee attitude and after telling me what that meant to her etc she looked at me and laughed. She now agrees that by and large the Yankee mind set is fairly liberal.