State 2012

Obama

% Tea

Party

approve System

favors

wealthy Cut/

raise

taxes Keep/

repeal

ACA Min.

wage

increase Hawaii 70.6 -34 55 12 -11 43 Vermont 66.6 -38 57 -3 3 46 New York 63.4 -26 45 8 1 43 Rhode Island 62.7 -28 49 22 -13 32 Maryland 62.0 -33 41 6 8 40 Massachusetts 60.7 -37 46 4 4 48 California 60.2 -26 36 4 4 33 Delaware 58.6 -32 41 13 -13 32 New Jersey 58.3 -24 35 9 -11 30 Connecticut 58.1 -27 34 20 -12 29 Illinois 57.5 -22 37 16 -7 32 Maine 56.3 -24 52 14 -15 30 Washington 55.8 -25 33 -2 -1 34 Oregon 54.2 -22 37 0 -7 24 Michigan 54.0 -18 39 19 -16 18 New Mexico 53.0 -24 42 10 -16 23 Wisconsin 52.8 -20 31 10 -11 17 Minnesota 52.7 -22 32 9 -21 22 Nevada 52.4 -17 31 17 -23 16 Iowa 52.0 -17 37 20 -26 15 New Hampshire 52.0 -25 40 19 -28 23 Pennsylvania 52.0 -13 28 19 -19 19 Colorado 51.5 -17 30 8 -12 14 Virginia 51.2 -22 30 8 -10 20 Ohio 50.6 -11 27 21 -26 14 Florida 49.9 -9 21 20 -21 18 North Carolina 48.4 -11 25 16 -17 16 Georgia 45.4 -4 16 24 -25 8 Arizona 44.5 -7 19 17 -28 4 Missouri 44.3 -3 25 23 -25 5 South Carolina 44.1 -4 31 32 -33 20 Indiana 43.8 -4 25 24 -30 9 Mississippi 43.8 -10 27 34 -29 14 Montana 41.7 -10 26 18 -35 7 Texas 41.4 5 12 28 -36 4 Alaska 40.8 -9 35 24 -32 21 Louisiana 40.6 -2 34 29 -39 21 South Dakota 39.9 -8 25 16 -37 20 Tennessee 39.0 5 21 33 -39 6 North Dakota 38.7 0 20 29 -40 16 Alabama 38.4 12 6 40 -45 -3 Kansas 38.1 -3 33 26 -40 12 Nebraska 38.0 -3 19 28 -39 3 Kentucky 37.8 -5 31 29 -37 9 Arkansas 36.8 -1 34 36 -41 19 West Virginia 35.5 -2 43 29 -45 17 Oklahoma 33.2 7 15 38 -56 -2 Idaho 32.4 6 11 36 -55 -6 Wyoming 27.8 13 4 41 -63 -21 Utah 24.7 2 12 39 -53 -16

To better organize the data, as you can see above, I've reduced every question to a binary question; some of the questions are already set up that way, like "How do you feel about the Tea Party movement?" (with the answers support, oppose, and neither support nor oppose). For that question, the number that you see above is the support number minus the oppose number, without including the 'neither' number; in Hawaii, for instance, 9 percent support and 43 percent oppose, for a total of -34.

Other questions, though, have a bit more nuance, like "What do you think should happen to the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) enacted in 2010?" (where the answers are "Expand it," "Leave it as is," "Repeal some of it," "Repeal all of it," and "Not sure"). There, I added up the positive numbers (in Hawaii, 25 percent say expand it and 12 percent say leave it as is), added up the negative numbers (27 percent say repeal some of it and 21 percent say repeal all of it), and subtracted the negative from the positive (for a total of -11).

The numbers are then broken down into quintiles for color-coding, with dark blue for the most Democratic-friendly quintile, light blue for the second quintile, grey for the median quintile, and so on. Hawaii, for instance, is in the top quintile for opposing the tea party, but only the second quintile for positive feelings about the ACA. You'll notice that the states are ordered not alphabetically, but by their 2012 red or blue status, so the ideological inconsistencies are easier to spot.

Responses to the tea party question, for instance, is pretty closely tied to a state's overall ideological lean, as seen in the presidential vote; there's a strong correlation between blue states opposing the tea party and red states supporting it or at least opposing it less (note that it's in positive territory in only seven states).

Only a few states stand out as misplaced; you might think New Hampshire (with its rather tea-flavored state motto, "Live free or die") might be receptive, but it's in the top quintile in its loathing for the tea party. While it's a swing state, a lot of the Republicans who are there are still old-school moderates. Likewise, Alaska is pretty lukewarm on the tea party, despite its red-state status; although it's very conservative on certain issues like energy and guns, it's also a state with high union membership and one of the highest rates of federal employment, so its antipathy toward the tea party isn't that surprising. (We'll be talking about Alaska a lot; you'll notice that Alaska stands out as an outlier in a lot of ways on these charts.)

When it comes to questions about economic populism, though, things get a little more jumbled, especially in some of the poorer states that are considered "ancestrally Democratic" and that were blue states a generation ago, like West Virginia and Arkansas. You'll notice that West Virginia is actually in the top quintile on the question "Do you think the US economic system favors the wealthy or is fair to most Americans?" Arkansas and Louisiana also score high on this measure, and so does Alaska (again, not a state with a Democratic tradition, but one with a lot of union penetration). Kansas and Kentucky also are disproportionately receptive to that question.

If you look over to the right-most column, "Do you favor or oppose raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour (from its current level of $7.25 per hour)?" you'll notice that a lot of the same states (West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alaska) also are disproportionately in favor of a minimum wage increase, so those states' economic populism isn't just confined to the issue of the system's fairness. Also, do you notice another common thread between all those states? They all have competitive Senate races this year! It's a little late in the game for me to recommend to those candidates that they emphasize those types of issues, but, to their credit, some of those candidates (especially Mark Pryor) have been sounding those notes at least some of the time.

Interestingly, the question about economic fairness doesn't seem to resonate strongly in some typically blue states, like Washington, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. I don't think there's any evidence that the economic system is truly fairer in these states as it's more about those states' unique temperaments. Those are, according to conventional wisdom, "good government" states with low levels of corruption, so maybe there's less of a sense of the "system," whether it's economic or governmental, being stacked against you. Perhaps there's also some truth to the popular stereotype of the people in those states being more stolid and passive-aggressive instead of complaining more vocally about their lots in life, too?

Finally, let's look at the other two economic questions on the table at the top: "Which of the following things do you think should be done to reduce the federal budget deficit?" and the question about the ACA that I described earlier. The deficit question offers three options: "Cut spending," "Raise taxes," and "Both cut spending and raise taxes," as well as "None of the above" and "Not sure." I combined both "Raise taxes" and "Both cut spending and raise taxes" as the Dem-friendly option, and subtracted only "Cut spending," but you'll notice that in almost all states, "Cut spending" still outweighed both other options combined.

It's unclear whether that's because the Republicans have been so successful at spreading their core message, or whether it's human nature to choose a simple-sounding and self-centered response to a complicated question (or a little of each). At any rate, it shows how the Democratic message on governance needs to be framed in some way other than the easily demagogued "spending" and "taxes." (Bill Clinton's focus on "investments" back in the 1990s seems pretty smart, in retrospect.)

These two issues, especially the ACA, are pretty clearly correlated with overall ideological leanings; how a state feels about the ACA is basically a stand-in for how it feels about the Democrats and Republicans in general. Maybe the most interesting outlier in these two categories is Virginia, which is one of the states closest to the ideological median, but is (relatively speaking) much more supportive of taxes and the ACA. If I had to speculate, I'd say that's because of Virginia's large, and increasing, share of federal employees. They're likelier to understand that "spending" is what powers their jobs (and "taxes" is what pays for that), and their level of comfort with the federal government seems likely to extend to the ACA as well.

You'll also notice that some of the New England states are disproportionately unenthused about taxes. Connecticut isn't that surprising; it's the nation's most affluent state, at least in terms of household income, and its trend toward the Democrats in recent decades has seemed more driven by social issues. Rhode Island, though, seems a little surprising, since it's often seemed to be struggling economically compared with its wealthier neighbors. Rhode Island's dark-blue status can be a little deceptive, though; it's strongly Democratic, but it's such a political monoculture that the Democratic Party there tends to span the spectrum, with a lot of moderates and even conservatives within its tent (cough ... Gina Raimondo ... cough).

State 2012

Obama

% SSM

approval Abortion

legal Limits

on

guns Global

warming

problem Lib/

con Hawaii 70.6 33 0 46 70 1 Vermont 66.6 51 20 22 48 8 New York 63.4 34 4 31 48 5 Rhode Island 62.7 48 2 42 51 0 Maryland 62.0 12 7 29 42 -1 Massachusetts 60.7 52 14 39 51 9 California 60.2 27 5 27 39 4 Delaware 58.6 23 -8 30 40 -8 New Jersey 58.3 22 -6 29 35 -2 Connecticut 58.1 35 1 23 38 -1 Illinois 57.5 20 -13 23 37 -3 Maine 56.3 36 -4 10 44 -6 Washington 55.8 25 2 23 29 -2 Oregon 54.2 21 -1 14 31 3 Michigan 54.0 8 -24 8 21 -11 New Mexico 53.0 25 -7 10 37 -2 Wisconsin 52.8 14 -22 11 21 -9 Minnesota 52.7 18 -20 9 28 -10 Nevada 52.4 24 -1 11 27 -6 Iowa 52.0 20 -25 1 30 -14 New Hampshire 52.0 39 -6 15 38 -14 Pennsylvania 52.0 11 -21 12 19 -15 Colorado 51.5 19 -3 9 21 -10 Virginia 51.2 7 -10 14 24 -11 Ohio 50.6 5 -27 5 16 -16 Florida 49.9 6 -23 13 20 -16 North Carolina 48.4 -4 -26 12 17 -16 Georgia 45.4 -10 -34 5 10 -22 Arizona 44.5 7 -21 5 13 -23 Missouri 44.3 -6 -37 3 7 -21 South Carolina 44.1 -10 -39 2 26 -30 Indiana 43.8 -2 -38 3 13 -24 Mississippi 43.8 -27 -51 2 14 -28 Montana 41.7 4 -20 -15 8 -23 Texas 41.4 -13 -33 -4 4 -28 Alaska 40.8 14 -16 -12 24 -20 Louisiana 40.6 -7 -50 -2 22 -27 South Dakota 39.9 0 -34 -9 12 -25 Tennessee 39.0 -29 -45 -8 3 -33 North Dakota 38.7 9 -24 -15 0 -18 Alabama 38.4 -32 -56 -12 -14 -40 Kansas 38.1 3 -37 -5 20 -28 Nebraska 38.0 -6 -38 -4 8 -33 Kentucky 37.8 -12 -46 -7 17 -26 Arkansas 36.8 -22 -47 -16 19 -30 West Virginia 35.5 -9 -43 -21 14 -22 Oklahoma 33.2 -14 -45 -28 -5 -36 Idaho 32.4 -18 -41 -28 -4 -42 Wyoming 27.8 -17 -39 -37 -23 -50 Utah 24.7 -22 -53 -24 -2 -36

Now let's turn to our second table, which is focused more on the social issues. We'll start with the questions of same-sex marriage and abortion; same-sex marriage is asked as a binary question ("Do you favor or oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally?"), while the abortion question ("When do you believe abortion should be legal?") contained more nuance. (The options are "Always," "Until the fetus can live outside the womb," "In the first trimester of pregnancy," "Only in special cases (such as rape, incest, or when the health of the mother is at risk)," and "Never.")

This one was hard to condense to a binary; looking at how answers in each category tended to correspond to each state's ideology, I combined the two lowest levels of restriction ("Always" and "Until the fetus can live outside the womb"), and from that subtracted the highest levels of restriction ("Only in special cases" and "Never"), while leaving out the "first trimester" option, which had a pretty steady level of support from state to state. If you want to see the more detailed breakdown, again, see the Google Doc.

Again, Alaska stands out like a sore thumb; despite their red-state status, the largely unchurched and libertarian-leaning Alaskans are basically fine with same-sex marriage and abortion. Interestingly, Montana and North Dakota, two other red states with wide open spaces and a "leave me alone" ethos are also pretty indifferent to the questions. Other outlying states, among the swing states, include New Hampshire (where "live free or die" certainly extends to same-sex marriage) and the very laissez-faire Nevada.

Among the bluer states, you might think that the most heavily Catholic states would tend to be disproportionately opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion. That's not really the case, though; for instance, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are still deep in the top quintile. Instead, the ones that are a little iffier tend to be farther south in the mid-Atlantic region; Delaware and New Jersey stand out a bit, and Maryland stands out a lot at least on the issue of same-sex marriage. Michigan's also a little disproportionate, though that's probably because it has a lot of evangelicals in its more conservative western side.

The issue of guns also was asked with an interesting level of nuance; the question "Do you think gun control laws should be made more or less strict than they are now?" had a number of potential responses: "Guns should be banned completely," "More strict," "Kept the same," "Less strict," "There should be no restrictions on gun ownership," and "Not sure." I added "banned completely" and "more strict" and from them subtracted "less strict" and "no restrictions," leaving out "kept the same."

As laissez-faire as Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota are about same-sex marriage and abortion, they aren't laissez-faire about clinging to their guns, positioned in the most pro-gun quintile. Looking farther up the chart, Iowa also stands out among the swing states as being pro-gun, and even farther up the top of the chart, the most rural of the dark-blue states, Vermont and Maine, also are likelier to stand out on the issue of guns. Among the swingier states, the Atlantic coastal states that have a lot of migration from the northeast (Florida, Virginia, North Carolina) tend to be the most open to gun restrictions. Maybe most interestingly (in the wake of the heated state Senate recalls), it's worth noting that Colorado isn't rabidly pro-gun; its feelings about guns are close to the national median (though that's probably because of polarization between strongly pro-gun and anti-gun sides, more so than widely-held moderate stances on the issue).

There was also a global warming question ("How serious a problem do you think global warming is?"), where I balanced "Very serious" and "Somewhat serious" against "Not very serious" and "Not a problem." Hawaii seems to take the issue much more seriously than anyone else (which may explain why Brian Schatz was able to make that a marquee issue in his Senate race); it's also a major concern in the northeast, even in swingy New Hampshire. Interestingly, South Carolina is an outlier among red states in seeing it as a problem (perhaps because of its exposed coastline?). Also worth noting: Kentucky and West Virginia, while still in the light-red quintile, aren't at the absolute bottom in this category, which may be surprising considering how much demagoguery of the coal issue has occurred in those states.

They also asked a variety of more general ideological questions, like whether respondents are very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, or very conservative, and the usually standbys like generic congressional ballot and presidential approval (as you can see in the chart below). These all correspond very clearly with the 2012 presidential vote, more so than the more complicated policy questions. It's worth noting, however, that North Dakota stands out a bit on both the liberal/conservative and presidential approval question; its recent dark-red voting pattern seems a bit at odds with its somewhat more moderate temperament (though that's good ... it's probably what helped Heidi Heitkamp in her surprise Senate victory here in 2012).

State 2012

Obama

% Generic

ballot Pres.

approval Nat'l

economy State

economy Aug.

UE Hawaii 70.6 25 12 2 -8 4.3 Vermont 66.6 22 7 -8 -25 4.1 New York 63.4 19 3 -3 -7 6.4 Rhode Island 62.7 17 -8 -4 -31 7.7 Maryland 62.0 25 13 3 -9 6.4 Massachusetts 60.7 20 3 3 4 5.8 California 60.2 15 1 4 0 7.4 Delaware 58.6 13 0 -8 -10 6.5 New Jersey 58.3 9 -6 -11 -35 6.6 Connecticut 58.1 7 -8 -11 -31 6.6 Illinois 57.5 10 -5 -5 -28 6.7 Maine 56.3 4 -16 -10 -15 5.6 Washington 55.8 9 -5 0 4 5.6 Oregon 54.2 7 -10 -4 -3 7.2 Michigan 54.0 3 -11 -2 14 7.4 New Mexico 53.0 9 -10 -11 -29 6.7 Wisconsin 52.8 4 -12 -1 1 5.6 Minnesota 52.7 -2 -17 1 14 4.3 Nevada 52.4 -6 -16 3 19 7.6 Iowa 52.0 -4 -17 -11 10 4.5 New Hampshire 52.0 -8 -25 -6 -3 4.4 Pennsylvania 52.0 -3 -19 -13 -11 5.8 Colorado 51.5 -1 -14 -1 20 5.1 Virginia 51.2 0 -12 -5 -8 5.6 Ohio 50.6 -6 -19 -8 13 5.7 Florida 49.9 -6 -18 -8 7 6.3 North Carolina 48.4 -4 -17 -10 -12 6.8 Georgia 45.4 -9 -19 -14 -12 8.1 Arizona 44.5 -14 -26 -12 -14 7.1 Missouri 44.3 -9 -26 -17 -17 6.3 South Carolina 44.1 -16 -28 -15 1 6.4 Indiana 43.8 -15 -26 -14 0 5.8 Mississippi 43.8 -14 -23 -19 -32 7.9 Montana 41.7 -15 -36 -20 1 4.7 Texas 41.4 -20 -32 -16 24 5.3 Alaska 40.8 -19 -32 -16 -6 6.8 Louisiana 40.6 -11 -29 -24 -13 5.8 South Dakota 39.9 -15 -33 -15 11 3.6 Tennessee 39.0 -27 -36 -22 -6 7.4 North Dakota 38.7 -17 -25 -17 51 2.8 Alabama 38.4 -31 -43 -30 -8 6.9 Kansas 38.1 -21 -34 -20 -26 4.9 Nebraska 38.0 -28 -34 -19 -1 3.6 Kentucky 37.8 -17 -36 -19 -23 7.1 Arkansas 36.8 -20 -42 -27 -18 6.3 West Virginia 35.5 -21 -51 -34 -45 6.6 Oklahoma 33.2 -39 -51 -31 -2 4.7 Idaho 32.4 -42 -54 -23 -12 4.7 Wyoming 27.8 -48 -55 -35 9 4.6 Utah 24.7 -40 -51 -20 20 3.6

Finally, YouGov asked a series of interesting questions about how the respondents perceive the economy, both at the national level and the state level. It's an important question to separate out, because there's often a disconnect between how people see the local conditions and the broader picture. The questions were asked "Overall, do you think the economy is getting better or worse?" and "How about the economy in your state? Do you think the economy in your state is getting better or worse?" In each case, the options were "Getting better," "Staying the same," "Getting worse," or "Not sure;" I simply subtracted "Getting worse" from "Getting better" in each category.

What I found is remarkable, though maybe not surprising: people's perceptions of the national economy seem colored by their ideological lenses, but their perceptions of their state economy seem grounded by what's actually happening to them. As you can see in the chart above, the national economy answers correspond closely with the states' ideological leanings; people in blue states see the national economy in a positive light, and in the red states, they see a steady drumbeat of doom.

It's a little more jumbled on the state side, but you can see a lot of correspondence between attitudes about the state economy and actual economic data. (Unemployment rate doesn't entirely describe the situation, but it's an easy measure to work with, so I used each state's August unemployment number, and broke it down into color-coded quintiles like all the other data, where blue is "good" and red is "bad.") Blue states where the unemployment is higher tend to view their state economies negatively (like Rhode Island and New Jersey), and some of the states where things are going well also view the economy positively (like Minnesota and Washington). Likewise, the red states with the healthiest economies (like the Dakotas and Utah) are willing to acknowledge that, while the ones that are in a funk (Kentucky and Georgia) feel negatively about their state economies.

There are still a number of disjointed responses, though. California, Michigan, and Nevada still have above-average unemployment rates, but they view their local economies in a very positive light. That may be in response to improvement, though; those three states were especially hard-hit by the recession (Michigan because of manufacturing losses, California and Nevada because of housing market collapses). They've seen some of the biggest comebacks, so the positive feelings reflect that more than the unemployment rate.

The real puzzle may be the states where the economy, or at least the unemployment rate, is doing fine, and people still think it sucks. One example that works to our advantage (in terms of its gubernatorial race) is Kansas, where there's a above-average employment but perceptions are in the lowest quintile. That may be because of Sam Brownback's mismanagement of the state budget, though, which, again, is what's driving him down in the gubernatorial race despite the state's dark-red tendencies. Other states with terrible economic perceptions where incumbent governors are suffering in the polls are Illinois and Connecticut, though those states also have above-average unemployment.

Even more puzzling, though, is the handful of states where unemployment looks great and people still aren't happy. Hawaii has low unemployment and people are feeling meh; Vermont has even lower unemployment and it's in the bottom quintile for perceptions about the local economy! Maybe there's a sample size issue in these states that captured an unusually grumpy subsample here; it's hard to imagine anyone being unhappy about living in Hawaii or Vermont at all, regardless of how the economy there is doing, but anything's possible.