I have tried and tried to buy into the general suggestion that intelligence has no bearing on party affiliation. Like race and other third rail topics, noone is willing to touch this one directly. But the difference between reality and what Bush and his supporters are saying has reached such enormity that this can no longer be ignored. So I did some research.
After the election, a blog came out on the internet asserting that people in blue states had higher IQ's on average than the red states. Conservatives, of course, protested, calling it a "hoax". Because IQ statistics are "extrapolated" from other stats, it is a slippery concept. I don't know if it was truly a hoax, or if conservatives used some phony baloney statistical manipulation to come to a different result. But I decided to move away from the IQ measure and look at more concrete measures and raw numbers. (Though I'm sure Republicans would still try to dispute these findings, also).
I went to web sites that had NO POLITICAL ELEMENT to them. I looked up which states had the highest percentage of college graduates in their populations. Sources: www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/
AND: The Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the 2003 Population Survey.
I ranked the states 1-51 (DC was included) and wrote it down on a peice of paper.
I THEN went to a completely different web site to get the electoral college map results from the 2004 presidential election.
Then I compared the two. Below is the result:
Rank/State %with Degree '04 Vote
1. DC 46.4% Kerry
2. Mass. 37.6% Kerry
3. Maryland 37.2% Kerry
4. Colorado 36.0% Bush
5. Virginia 34.2% Bush
6. N. H. 34.0% Kerry
7. Connect. 33.5% Kerry
8. N. J. 33.4% Kerry
9. Minnesota 32.7% Kerry
10. Vermont 31.3% Kerry
11. Kansas 31.0% Bush
12. California 29.8% Kerry
13. New York 29.6% Kerry
14. Wash. 28.8% Kerry
15. Utah 28.4% Bush
16. Delaware 28.1% Kerry
(tie) Illinois 28.1% Kerry
18. Rhode I. 27.6% Kerry
19. Hawaii 27.0% Kerry
20. Nebraska 26.8% Bush
21. Missouri 26.6% Bush
22. Oregon 26.4% Kerry
23. Arizona 26.0% Bush
24. Florida 25.8% Bush
25. N. D. 25.2% Bush
26. Ohio 25.0% Bush
(tie) Georgia 25.0% Bush
28. Montana 24.9% Bush
29. Penn. 24.8% Kerry
30. Texas 24.7% Bush
31. Iowa 24.6% Bush
32. Oklahoma 24.3% Bush
33. Wisconsin 24.1% Kerry
34. Alaska 24.0% Bush
35. S. D. 23.9% Bush
36. N. C. 23.8% Bush
37. Maine 23.7% Kerry
(tie) N. M. 23.7% Bush
39. Tennessee 23.5% Bush
40. Michigan 23.3% Kerry
41. Alabama 22.7% Bush
42. Idaho 22.5% Bush
43. Louisiana 22.3% Bush
(tie) S. C. 22.3% Bush
45. Indiana 22.2% Bush
46. Kentucky 21.3% Bush
47. Nevada 21.2% Bush
48. Wyoming 20.7% Bush
49. Mississippi 19.3% Bush
50. Arkansas 17.4% Bush
51. West Virginia 15.3% Bush
Eight of the top ten went for Kerrry, as did 15 out of the top 20. The bottom eleven states all went for Bush.
Don't believe it? It's true, check the sources.