With the Republican convention taking place this week, here’s a chart listing the most Republican and least Republican states. It comes from Slate, which built it using Gallup polling on party preferences.
It turns out that Illinois, the state that produced the first two Republican presidents, is now one of the least Republican in the union. In only six states do fewer voters identify as Republicans. Illinois is the least Republican state that is not on the East or the West coast, and the second-largest in the Top 10, after California. Thanks to the influence of Chicago, it votes like a coastal, cosmopolitan state despite its interior location. This explains why the Republican Party has had zero influence in state politics in the last 10 years, has won only two Senate elections in the last 34 years, and couldn’t even beat an unelected Democratic governor with an 28 percent approval rating. The Democrats have become the natural governing party in Illinois. The Republicans can only make a case for themselves when the Democrats really screw up.
Here’s the list of least Republican states:
Rhode Island: 26.5 percent
Massachusetts: 33.4 percent
Maryland: 33.8 percent
Connecticut: 34.4 percent
Vermont: 34.9 percent
California: 34.6 percent
Illinois: 35.8 percent
And of most Republican, if you’re frustrated with Democratic rule here:
Utah: 63.8 percent
Idaho: 57.8 percent
Wyoming: 56.6 percent
Nebraska: 52.1 percent
Kansas: 51.3 percent
Alabama: 49.6 percent
Montana: 49.6 percent
This month, Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland’s Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President will be available on Kindle for $2.99. Tracing Obama’s career in Chicago from his arrival as a community organizer to his election to the U.S. Senate, Young Mr. Obama tells the story of how a callow, presumptuous young man became a master politician, and of why only Chicago could have produced our first black president.
