Derek Robertson is an intern for POLITICO Magazine.

LeBron James. Serena Williams. Lionel Messi. New Hampshire.

The Granite State might seem like an outlier in a group of historically dominant stars, but it joins their prestigious company with a fourth straight year atop POLITICO Magazine’s quasi-annual ranking of the 50 states of the union, including its tie in 2016 with Minnesota. New Hampshire leads the nation with its low poverty rate and infant mortality rate, as well as its high reading test scores and percentage of its population employed in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields, while also cracking the top five in lowest levels of crime, income inequality and unemployment.


He’s not always big on tradition, but it’s a decent bet that President Donald Trump will repeat his predecessors’ assertion that “the state of the union is strong”—perhaps even stronger than ever—when he gives his first official State of the Union address Tuesday. The individual states of the union, however, are another story entirely.

Nearly 100 years ago now, the legendary gadfly H.L. Mencken, in his capacity as editor of the American Mercury, teamed with co-editor Charles Angoff to produce a wholly unscientific—but anecdotally recognizable—ranking of the 50 states. They used census data, primarily, to produce an index that ordered the states by their achievements (or lack thereof) in wealth, health and public safety. In that spirit, POLITICO Magazine is continuing our tradition of combining 14 metrics, based on data from the Census Bureau, other government agencies and nonprofits, to produce our own power rankings of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

To perennial laggards Mississippi and Louisiana, we bear no ill will, though our inboxes are always open to another letter from any governor wishing to defend his or her state’s good name. Louisiana brings up the rear this time around, coming in 51st, just as it did in 2016, the year of the last official State of the Union address. Maine makes a significant leap, jumping eight spots from No. 17 to No. 9, while South Dakota slides from No. 16 to No. 22 with the most recently available data.

Democrats hold a mere 15 of the country’s 50 state executive seats, but a disproportionate 10 of their states crack the top half of the list. A roughly even mix of six states that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and four that went for Trump make up the top 10. The bottom 10 were all solid Trump victories, reflecting his strength in the South, a region whose states have consistently brought up the rear in each of these studies. Curiously, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan—three of Clinton’s key Rust Belt losses—range across the rankings, at 10, 24 and 36, respectively, bolstering the argument that something more than a pat diagnosis of “economic anxiety” was at play in pushing them toward Trump.

We’ve provided the data below for full transparency, and to offer a clearer picture of each state’s strengths and weaknesses. Economic powerhouses like New York and the District of Columbia are tempered by their high crime rates and levels of income inequality, for instance, while states like Alabama that lag in many other indicators rank relatively high in homeownership and low in unemployment. With states recently treating each other more like warring fiefdoms than as strands in America’s national tapestry, it may be useful to make sure one’s own state is in order before casting stones at someone else’s.



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1. New Hampshire (Chris Sununu, R)

2. Minnesota (Mark Dayton, D)

3. Vermont (Phil Scott, R)

4. Utah (Gary Herbert, R)

5. Colorado (John Hickenlooper, D)

6. Massachusetts (Charlie Baker, R)

7. Iowa (Kim Reynolds, R)

8. Wyoming (Matt Mead, R)

9. Maine (Paul LePage, R)

10. Wisconsin (Scott Walker, R)

11. Idaho (Butch Otter, R)

12. Hawaii (David Ige, D)

13. Connecticut (Dannel Malloy, D)

14. Virginia (Ralph Northam, D)

15. New Jersey (Phil Murphy, D)

16. Washington (Jay Inslee, D)

17. Nebraska (Pete Ricketts, R)

18. North Dakota (Doug Burgum, R)

19. Montana (Steve Bullock, D)

20. Maryland (Larry Hogan, R)

21. Oregon (Kate Brown, D)

22. South Dakota (Dennis Daugaard, R)

23. Kansas (Jeff Colyer, R)

24. Pennsylvania (Tom Wolf, D)

25. Alaska (Bill Walker, I)

26. Rhode Island (Gina Raimondo, D)

27. California (Jerry Brown, D)

28. Delaware (John Carney, D)

29. New York (Andrew Cuomo, D)

30. Arizona (Doug Ducey, R)

31. Illinois (Bruce Rauner, R)

32. Indiana (Eric Holcomb, R)

33. Missouri (Eric Greitens, R)

34. Florida (Rick Scott, R)

35. Ohio (John Kasich, R)

36. Michigan (Rick Snyder, R)

37. Texas (Greg Abbott, R)

38. District of Columbia (Muriel Bowser, D, mayor)

39. North Carolina (Roy Cooper, D)

40. Nevada (Brian Sandoval, R)

41. New Mexico (Susana Martinez, R)

42. South Carolina (Henry McMaster, R)

43. Kentucky (Matt Bevin, R)

44. Georgia (Nathan Deal, R)

45. Tennessee (Bill Haslam, R)

46. Oklahoma (Mary Fallin, R)

47. West Virginia (Jim Justice, R)

48. Alabama (Kay Ivey, R)

49. Arkansas (Asa Hutchinson, R)

50. Mississippi (Phil Bryant, R)

51. Louisiana (John Bel Edwards, D)

Data is the most recent available from: U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Fact Finder, University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gallup, the National Center for Education Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation.