State Smartness Rankings and the 2004 Presidential Election
Since the November 2 election, I've been passed a number of links to pages that claim to have the 'average IQ' of each state along with whom that state's electoral votes went to and while amusing at first glance, it is most definitely the product of someone's imagination... The data was originally published in 'The Economist Newspaper' and not too soon after that, the Economist retracted their article stating that they (like the thousands who visited the 'IQ list') were duped by a HOAX. (And if if I had to guess, I'd say the hoaxsters were Kerry fans). Now being that this IS the internet and considering the amount of spin on it, this shouldn't surprise anyone... but I started wondering about how ACTUAL data could be used to illustrate the same idea and so I did a little research and here, ladies and gentleman is a list of each of the 50 States and to whom their electoral votes went to in order from the SMARTEST state (Massachusetts) to the DUMBEST state (New Mexico). I'm just the messenger in this case so if you don't like where your state is ranked, then either A) Start pushing for a better education system in your state, or B) Go yell at the people who did the research (The rankings are based on Morgan Quitno Press' book, 'Education State Rankings 2004-2005'.) Now while it is certainly not as 'graphic' as the fake list, you can see that factual information can be somewhat amusing too..;-)
| Rank | State | Winner |
| 1 | Massachusetts | Kerry |
| 2 | Connecticut | Kerry |
| 3 | Vermont | Kerry |
| 4 | New Jersey | Kerry |
| 5 | Wisconsin | Kerry |
| 6 | New York | Kerry |
| 7 | Minnesota | Kerry |
| 8 | Iowa | Bush |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | Kerry |
| 10 | Montana | Bush |
| 11 | Maine | Kerry |
| 12 | Virginia | Bush |
| 13 | Nebraska | Bush |
| 14 | New Hampshire | Kerry |
| 15 | Kansas | Bush |
| 16 | Wyoming | Bush |
| 17 | Indiana | Bush |
| 18 | Maryland | Kerry |
| 19 | North Dakota | Bush |
| 20 | Ohio | Bush |
| 21 | Colorado | Bush |
| 22 | South Dakota | Bush |
| 23 | Rhode Island | Kerry |
| 24 | Illinois | Kerry |
| 25 | North Carolina | Bush |
| 26 | Missouri | Bush |
| 27 | Delaware | Kerry |
| 28 | Utah | Bush |
| 29 | Idaho | Bush |
| 30 | Washington | Kerry |
| 31 | Michigan | Kerry |
| 32 | South Carolina | Bush |
| 33 | Texas | Bush |
| 33 | West Virginia | Bush |
| 35 | Oregon | Kerry |
| 36 | Arkansas | Bush |
| 37 | Kentucky | Bush |
| 38 | Georgia | Bush |
| 39 | Florida | Bush |
| 40 | Oklahoma | Bush |
| 41 | Tennessee | Bush |
| 42 | Hawaii | Kerry |
| 43 | California | Kerry |
| 44 | Alabama | Bush |
| 45 | Alaska | Bush |
| 46 | Louisiana | Bush |
| 47 | Mississippi | Bush |
| 48 | Arizona | Bush |
| 49 | Nevada | Bush |
| 50 | New Mexico | Bush |