Florida's political partisans don't like each other. That might seem obvious, but compared to other states we take it to the extreme.

Our partisans — liberal and conservative — are among the most politically prejudiced in the country, according to polling firm PredictWise.

That's not something to be proud of.

The analysis, featured in a recent article in the Atlantic magazine, ranked each county in the nation for political tolerance. An accompanying map shaded the least prejudiced counties in white. Dark green indicated most prejudice.

Florida was entirely dark green, every one of our 67 counties. No other state was so biased. South Carolina was close, but even it had a handful of more tolerant counties.

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New York, North Carolina and Kansas were three of the most tolerant. Their residents were more willing to hear out the other side, even if they disagreed. Texas, California and Illinois were mixed.

"Florida stood out for being consistently prejudiced from place to place," PredictWise's co-founder and chief science officer Tobias Konitzer told me.

PredictWise used survey questions and demographic data to suss out political tolerance down to the neighborhood level. The authors only looked at partisans, people with apparent political leanings, based largely on party affiliation. They dropped people who didn't seem to care about politics. After all, it's hard to determine who they would be prejudiced towards.

The analysis doesn't measure general or racial intolerance. Just how partisans feel about their counterparts at the other end of the political spectrum.

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The authors found that urban counties across the country were more politically prejudiced, and that rural counties were more forgiving of their political foes. In Florida, for instance, Pinellas and Hillsborough were more prejudiced than Citrus and Polk.

The politically intolerant were whiter, older, wealthier and more educated. That may be surprising at first, but it makes sense and jibes with previous research.

Educated whites tend to have more money, which they can use to isolate themselves in ways not available to people of lesser means. They can live in gated communities or in trendy urban developments. It's easier to surround themselves with politically like-minded people. As a result, they encounter less diverse social networks.

Why did Florida score so high? Our population is older — much older in some places — and many counties are overwhelmingly white. We also have more hyper-partisans, which correlates with increased intolerance.

We're more likely than in other states to live in homogenous enclaves, the analysis found. Republicans isolated in some areas; Democrats in others. The Villages, the predominantly conservative retirement community, is a good example. So too are many of our urban cores, which lean liberal.

In other words, our neighbors are likely to be just like us, at least politically.

"You've sorted yourselves more than in other states," Konitzer said. "The result is less cross-cutting relationships, fewer chances of running into people with political views that differ from yours."

Konitzer emphasized that the analysis has limitations. It's hard to measure partisanship, for one thing. Plus a report like this can't account for someone's specific network of friends, such as a woman living in a highly conservative area who has many liberal friends. That said, he thinks it contributes to the country's ongoing and important conversation about political polarization.

Political biases lead to shaky thinking. As the Atlantic pointed out, mutual fund managers are more likely to make investments handled by fellow partisans, even though it doesn't lead to better returns.

The political prejudice can feed on itself, pushing factions into more distinct tribes. It makes it harder for us to see the things — the many things — we agree on. In Florida, for instance, there's a strong consensus for preserving more land and improving our transportation systems, but we've lagged in doing either.

It breeds a mentality of "If you win, I lose, so I'll do anything to stop you." That hinders democracy and hurts us all.

Contact Graham Brink at gbrink@tampabay.com. Follow @GrahamBrink.