The Homa Files

A friend sent along a study by an organization called SafeHome that ranks states by their relative “smartness”.

More specifically, the study used a formula that “takes into account college degrees, high school graduation, professional or advanced degrees and test scores to create a smartest states ranking.”

So, “smartness” isn’t just native IQ, it’s opportunity and achievement, too.

Without quibbling over the criteria or the formula, here is the answer:

click to see the state by state details

I suspect that my friend was multi-motivated, sending me the study because (1) it’s interesting, (2) New Jersey — her home state — topped the list, and (3) it would prove that smart voted for HRC and dumb voted for DJT.

Of course, I had to drill down to see if #3 is true…

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Let’s start with my favorite map rendition — the sea-of-red electoral map from 2016.

Now let’s merge the electoral results with the smartest states list … I checked off the states that Trump won:

Note that Trump won 5 of the 8 smartest state … and 9 out of the top 17.

Hillary won 10 out the 17 mid-smart states.

Trump kicked serious butt in the lower third … winning 14 of the 17 “least smart” states.

So, based on this study, it’s true that Trump cruised to victory thanks to the “dumb” states.

But, it’s not true that Hillary dominated the “smart” states.  Those were a “push” between DJT and HRC.

Hmmm…

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Note: Before you say: “Yeah, but should be weighted by population, glance at where California, New York and Illinois are in the rankings.

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This entry was posted on December 3, 2019 at 6:59 am and is filed under 2016 Presidential Election, Demograhics, Education - Academics, IQ - IQ Scores. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.