Which is the Bluest State?

Across numerous different metrics, these states finished in the top 20 for the "Bluest State." But which one was Number One?

Not long ago, someone in the comments section on another message board said that his state of Washington was the bluest state. 

This is absolutely not a knock against Washington state, but that just didn’t seem right to me. Bluer than Washington, DC, the only U.S. jurisdiction to never give a single electoral vote to a Republican in it’s entire voting history? Well, maybe they weren’t counting D.C. as a state. But bluer than California, Vermont, Massachusetts, and other states that the New York Times’ Upshot polls have consistently listed as Solid Dem all season, while Washington occasionally dipped into Likely Dem territory?

So I had to look into his claims. A quick Google search led me to a now slightly out-of-date October 2014 article from The Hill that claimed Alabama as the reddest state and Washington state as the bluest. 

But in looking at their methodology, which I’ll explain in more detail below, it seems to me that they were looking more at longevity of blueness rather than depth of blueness. If you want to know which state is the deepest blue … well, that depends on what criteria you choose to use.

The Hill’s Methodology

The Hill’s analysis was done in October of 2014, so things definitely would have changed with the November 2014 midterm elections. It used six criteria:

• How many times the state voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate in the last seven presidential elections, 1988 through 2012?
• How many of the state’s two U.S. Senators were Democrats?
• How many of the state’s U.S. House delegation were Democrats?
• How many of the state’s last three Governors were Democrats?
• Is the state’s legislature controlled by Democrats, Republicans, or split?

Based on all of this criteria, which at first seems reasonably objective and scientific, Washington state did rank at the top. It voted for the Democrat for President in each of the last seven elections, even for Dukakis in 1988. All of its last three Governors – Gary Locke (1997-2005), Christine Gregoire (2005-2013), and Jay Inslee (2013-present) are Democrats. Both U.S. Senators and six of its ten U.S. House delegation are Democrats. 

The Hill also listed both houses of Washington’s state legislature as controlled by Democrats. This, however, may not have been strictly accurate. For the 2013-14 session, Washington State Senators Tim Sheldon and Rodney Tom, both conservative Democrats, joined with the 23 Republican members of the State Senate to form a Majority Coalition Caucus. Though there were technically 26 Democrats and 23 Republicans, Sheldon and Tom’s power-sharing agreement effectively gave Republicans control of the Upper Chamber. The Hill should probably have listed their Legislature as split, but since I don’t know how the scoring was done, I don’t know how this may have changed their rankings.

Note: I am correcting transcriptional errors as they are pointed out, since as my own error with Rhode Island’s House delegation. Some potential errors are on The Hill’s end. In those instances, I am leaving their errors but noting them here. In Rhode Island, at the time their article was done, Lincoln Chafee was elected as an Independent but later became a Democrat. Although they incorrectly stated that the last three governors were Republican, their argument would sound better if they said that none were Democrats at the time they were elected. In addition to their error with Washington’s State Senate noted above, they have a similar error with New York's State Senate where some Independent Democrats joined with Republicans to give Republicans control of the Senate. If their intent was to show how many Democrats the voters elected regardless of the Legislature’s ultimate organization, they should have explained that. Don’t forget, this data is from October 2014 and has changed in many states. You may disagree with The Hill's interpretations or conclusions. That’s why I decided to dig deeper into other data points.

The Hill's 2014 Rankings of "Bluest States"

#	State	Last 7 Prez Elections	Senators	US House	% House	Last 3 Gov’s	Leg.
1	Washington	7 / 7	2	6 / 10	60%	100%	Dem
2	Minnesota	7 / 7	2	5 of 8	62.5%	33%	Dem
3	Oregon	7 / 7	2	4 of 5	80%	100%	Dem
4	California	6 / 7	2	38 / 53	71.7%	67%	Dem
5	Rhode Island	7 / 7	2	2 of 2	66.7%	0%	Dem
6	New York	7 / 7	2	21 / 27	77.8%	100%	Dem
7	Massachusetts	7 / 7	2	9 of 9	100%	33%	Dem
8	Maryland	6 / 7	2	7 of 8	87.5%	33%	Dem
9	Michigan	6 / 7	2	5 / 14	28.6%	33%	Rep
10	Wisconsin	7 / 7	1	3 of 8	37.5%	33%	Rep
11	Maine	6 / 7	0 *	2 of 2	100%	33%	Dem
12	Illinois	6 / 7	1	12 / 18	66.7%	67%	Dem
13	Hawaii	7 / 7	1	2 of 2	100%	67%	Dem
14	Connecticut	6 / 7	2	5 of 5	100%	33%	Dem
15	Vermont	6 / 7	1 *	1 of 1	100%	67%	Dem
16	New Jersey	6 / 7	2	5 / 11	45.5%	67%	Dem
17	Delaware	6 / 7	2	1 of 1	100%	67%	Dem
18	Iowa	6 / 7	1	2 of 4	50%	67%	Split
19	Pennsylvania	6 / 7	1	5 / 18	27.8%	33%	Rep
20	New Mexico	5 / 7	2	2 of 3	66.7%	33%	Split
21	New Hampshire	5 / 7	1	2 of 2	100%	67%	Split
22	Nevada	4 / 7	1	2 of 4	50%	0%	Dem
23	Ohio	4 / 7	1	4 / 16	25%	33%	Dem
24	West Virginia	3 / 7	2	1 of 3	33.3%	100%	Dem
25	Colorado	3 / 7	2	3 of 7	42.9%	67%	Dem
26	Florida	3 / 7	1	10 / 17	37%	0%	Rep
27	Virginia	2 / 7	2	3 / 10	30%	67%	Rep
28	Missouri	2 / 7	1	2 of 8	25%	67%	Rep
29	Arkansas	2 / 7	1	0 of 4	0%	67%	Rep
30	Kentucky	2 / 7	0	1 of 6	16.7%	67%	Split
31	Louisiana	2 / 7	1	1 of 6	16.7%	33%	Rep
32	Tennessee	2 / 7	0	2 of 9	22.2%	33%	Rep
33	Indiana	1 / 7	1	2 of 9	22.2%	33%	Rep
34	Montana	1 / 7	2	1 of 1	100%	67%	Rep
35	North Carolina	1 / 7	1	3  / 12	25%	67%	Rep
36	Georgia	0 / 7	0	5 / 14	35.7%	33%	Rep
37	Arizona	1 / 7	0	5 of 9	55.6%	33%	Rep
38	South Dakota	0 / 7	1	0 of 1	0%	0%	Rep
39	North Dakota	0 / 7	1	0 of 1	0%	0%	Dem
40	Texas	0 / 7	0	12 / 36	33.3%	33%	Rep
41	South Carolina	0 / 7	0	1 of 7	14.3%	33%	Rep
42	Wyoming	0 / 7	0	1 of 1	100%	33%	Rep
43	Utah	0 / 7	0	1 of 4	25%	0%	Rep
44	Oklahoma	0 / 7	0	0 of 5	0%	33%	Rep
45	Nebraska	0 / 7	0	1 of 3	33.3%	33%	NP *
46	Mississippi	0 / 7	0	1 of 4	25%	33%	Rep
47	Kansas	0 / 7	0	0 of 4	0%	33%	Rep
48	Idaho	0 / 7	0	0 of 2	0%	0%	Rep
49	Alaska	0 / 7	1	0 of 1	0%	0%	Rep
50	Alabama	0 / 7	0	1 of 7	14.3%	33%	Rep

* Nebraska’s legislature is officially nonpartisan but is essentially Republican-controlled. The Hill did not count Maine and Vermont’s Independent U.S. Senators even though they caucus with the Democrats.

Whether Washington state should qualify for first under The Hill’s own rules is debatable. On the one hand, their State Senate was controlled by a coalition that included two Democrats and all of the Republicans. It was essentially a Republican majority, so the Legislature should be listed as “split.” On the other hand, The Hill could argue that their terminology was shorthand for showing that the voters had elected a majority of Democrats to the State Senate, which was the most important thing for showing the blueness of voters. How the Senate chose to organize itself later wasn’t particularly important.

Other states that seem like they could have been in contention received demerits for voting for George H. W. Bush in 1988, for example, or perhaps a Republican Governor once or twice. Vermont could quibble about being penalized since their Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders, is to the left of most Democrats, but The Hill would probably counter that they were gauging which state is the most Democratic, not most liberal. And Oregon could quibble because their House delegation has a higher percentage of Democrats, but being a smaller state, it has fewer Democratic Representatives in Congress than Washington state. 

And on the conservative side, Texas got dinged for not being conservative enough simply because Rick Perry was governor for so damn long. Because of that, and because The Hill’s article was written when he was still Governor, their span of the last three governors stretched 23 years to include Democrat Ann Richards (1991-1995) along with Republicans George W. Bush (1995-2000) and Rick Perry (2000-2015). They may have had Republican governors for 19 years at the time of The Hill’s article, but it still only counted as 66%.

I have some concerns with The Hill’s methodology, aside from their error with calculating Washington’s State Senate. They seem more focused on how long a state has been blue rather than how deep that blueness is. Data points like the last three governors and last seven presidential elections measure time but not depth. Even the two U.S. Senators may measure time to a degree, since their six-year terms means that they may have been around a long time, first elected when the state’s demographics were different and then held on through the power of incumbency. Even surviving just one tough re-election battle could mean a decade in office past the state’s changed demographics. My own two Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, were both elected 24 years ago in 1992 when Bill Clinton was first elected. Back then, Republicans could actually win a statewide race here. There are California voters who were just born when Boxer was first running for re-election, and Feinstein had already done so at that point.

The Hill’s methodology treats tossup states that just barely squeak identically as states that are Solid Democrat. Wisconsin voted for Dukakis and every Democratic presidential candidate ever since, but sometimes by under 1%. Massachusetts, bogged down by its propensity for occasionally electing Republican governors, is never in contention for Republican presidential candidates and often votes for the Democrat in blowout numbers. The Hill’s methodology doesn’t capture that sort of depth.

So I decided to explore some alternative criteria to capture depth of blueness.

Different Approaches for Comparing Depth of Blueness

There are a number of different ways to compare states’ degree of Democraticness or Republicanness. I decided to look at the following criteria:

1. Margin of Democratic Victory in the last several presidential elections
2. Democratic Party Registration versus Republican Party Registration by State
3. Democratic Party Identification versus Republican Party Identification by State
4. Liberal versus Conservative Ideology by State
5. Number of Elected Democrats versus Elected Republicans by State

Note that for some of this data, the District of Columbia was included. For others, it was not but I was able to find its data elsewhere. But in some cases, the District was penalized by simply not being included. Some will argue that it shouldn’t be included anyway since it isn’t a state, but since it has electoral votes, I’ve tried to be as comprehensive as possible.

Margin of Presidential Victories

The Hill looked at how many times the state voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate after the Reagan landslide of 1984. But as I mentioned before, that data point puts Wisconsin equal to Massachusetts, and that just seems odd, even though it would be mitigated by other data points. So I decided to look at the democratic margin of victory.

I chose to limit it to the last three election cycles. That allowed me to avoid the mess in Florida in 2000. But more importantly, if we want to see which states are the bluest now, using data that’s more than fifteen years old doesn’t seem very useful. Migration and disparate birth rates can cause a state’s demographics to change a lot over a decade and a half. Three cycles seemed sufficient.

The number of votes that the Democratic Presidential candidate got more than the Republican candidate gives us the vote margin, and that number as a percent of all votes cast gives us the percentage difference. Comparing the percentage difference state-by-state allows us to rank states of different sizes. 

Wikipedia separates out Maine’s first and second congressional districts from the rest of the state in 2012, but doesn’t for 2008 and 2004. For the overall ranking, the state’s “At Large” total is used.

2004 Margin of John Kerry’s Presidential Victory in the State Over George Bush

State	Vote Margin	Percent	Rank
District of Columbia	181,714	79.84%	1
Massachusetts	732,691	25.16%	2
Rhode Island	90,719	20.75%	3
Vermont	62,887	20.14%	4
New York	1,351,713	18.29%	5
Maryland	309,790	12.98%	6
Connecticut	163,662	10.37%	7
Illinois	545,604	10.34%	8
California	1,235,659	9.95%	9
Maine	66,641	9.00%	10
Hawaii	37,517	8.74%	11
Delaware	28,492	7.59%	12
Washington	205,307	7.18%	13
New Jersey	241,427	6.68%	14
Oregon	76,332	4.16%	15
Minnesota	98,319	3.48%	16
Michigan	165,437	3.42%	17
Pennsylvania	144,248	2.50%	18
New Hampshire	9,274	1.37%	19
Wisconsin	11,384	0.38%	20

2008 Margin of Barack Obama’s Presidential Victory in the State Over John McCain

State	Vote Margin	Percent	Rank
District of Columbia	228,443	85.92%	1
Hawaii	205,205	45.26%	2
Vermont	120,228	37.01%	3
Rhode Island	131,180	27.81%	4
New York	2,052,174	26.86%	5
Massachusetts	795,243	25.81%	6
Maryland	669,605	25.44%	7
Illinois	1,388,169	25.14%	8
Delaware	103,085	25.00%	9
California	3,262,692	24.06%	10
Connecticut	368,344	22.37%	11
Maine	126,650	17.32%	12
Washington	521,632	17.18%	13
Michigan	823,940	16.47%	14
Oregon	298,816	16.35%	15
New Jersey	602,215	15.57%	16
New Mexico	125,590	15.13%	17
Wisconsin	414,818	13.90%	18
Nevada	120,909	12.49%	19
Pennsylvania	620,478	10.32%	20
Minnesota	297,945	10.24%	21
New Hampshire	68,292	9.61%	22
Iowa	146,561	9.53%	23
Colorado	215,004	8.95%	24
Virginia	234,527	6.30%	25
Ohio	262,224	4.59%	26
Florida	236,450	2.82%	27
Indiana	28,391	1.03%	28
North Carolina	14,177	0.33%	29

2012 Margin of Barack Obama’s Presidential Victory in the State Over Mitt Romney

State	Vote Margin	Percent	Rank
District of Columbia	245,689	83.63%	1
Hawaii	185,643	42.71%	2
Vermont	106,541	35.60%	3
New York	1,995,310	28.18%	4
Rhode Island	122,473	27.46%	5
Maryland	705,975	26.08%	6
Massachusetts	732,976	23.14%	7
California	3,014,327	23.12%	8
Maine, 1st	80,098	21.39%	9
Delaware	77,100	18.63%	10
New Jersey	647,533	17.81%	11
Connecticut	270,191	17.33%	12
Illinois	884,296	16.87%	13
Maine (at-large)	109,030	15.29%	14
washington	464,726	14.87%	15
Oregon	216,313	12.09%	16
New Mexico	79,547	10.15%	17
Michigan	449,313	9.50%	18
Maine, 2nd	28,283	8.56%	19
Minnesota	225,942	7.69%	20
Wisconsin	213,019	6.94%	21
Nevada	67,806	6.68%	22
Iowa	91,927	5.81%	23
New Hampshire	39,643	5.58%	24
Pennsylvania	309,840	5.39%	25
Colorado	137,858	5.37%	26
Virginia	149,298	3.87%	27
Ohio	166,277	2.98%	28
Florida	74,309	0.88%	29

To see which state’s overall margin was the best across all three cycles, we can’t average their ranks or the percentage of their Democratic Victory Margins because some states didn’t vote for the Democratic candidate all three years. Instead, I wanted to compare ordinal rankings (e.g., number of first places, number of second places, etc.), like the way Olympic Figure Skating scoring used to be done. But I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how to do that (this is where I tell myself I really, really should have taken a statistics class in college), so I instead awarded a score to each ordinal rank. 

Because there are 29 states here, I chose to award 30 points for each first place position, 29 points for each second place, and so on, with zero points awarded for any state in any year that did not vote for the Democratic candidate. In later charts, there will be more than 30 states ranked, but we don’t need to worry about that. None of the lower ones have any shot of claiming the title of the “Bluest State.”

Looking at only the Margin of Presidential Victory, which some might argue is the most important criterion for this particular argument, Washington D.C. ranks bluest over the last three election cycles, followed by Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, and then Hawaii and Massachusetts tied.

Ranking U.S. States by Margin of Democratic Presidential Victory (2004-2012)

State	Overall Rank	Score	2012	2008	2004
District of Columbia	1	90	1	1	1
Vermont	2	83	3	3	4
Rhode Island	3	81	5	4	3
New York	4	79	4	5	5
Hawaii	5	78	2	2	11
Massachusetts	5	78	7	6	2
Maryland	7	74	6	7	6
California	8	66	8	10	9
Illinois	9	64	13	8	8
Connecticut	10	63	12	11	7
Delaware	11	62	10	9	12
Maine	12	57	14	12	10
Washington	13	52	15	13	13
New Jersey	13	52	11	16	14
Oregon	15	47	16	15	15
Michigan	16	44	18	14	17
Minnesota	17	36	20	21	16
Wisconsin	18	34	21	18	20
Pennsylvania	19	30	25	20	18
New Hampshire	20	28	24	22	19
New Mexico	20	28	17	17	X
Nevada	22	21	22	19	X
Iowa	23	16	23	23	X
Colorado	24	12	26	24	X
Virginia	25	10	27	25	X
Ohio	26	8	28	26	X
Florida	27	6	29	27	X
Indiana	28	3	X	28	X
North Carolina	29	2	X	29	X

Not surprisingly, having a native son on the ballot seems to drive up the margins. In 2004, Massachusetts was second to D.C. when their Senator, John Kerry, was the Democratic nominee. In 2008 and 2012, Massachusetts dropped down but Hawaii, previously in eleventh place, shot up to second place when for the first time a candidate born in their state, Barack Obama, was on the ballot.

Democratic Party Registration

Another way to measure the blueness of a state is to measure how many voters are actually registered as Democrats versus as Republicans. But this may not be as straightforward as it sounds.

Many voters consider themselves to be Independent and register that way, but in practice really aren’t. Most of them tend to always vote for Democrats or Republicans all the time. Their actual party registration may not reflect their voting habits, however, and that may be particularly true in states with open primaries and jungle or blanket primaries where they can still participate in the primaries without being affiliated with a party.

Even so, party registration can still be a useful measure of depth of passion, or blueness. Still, we’re hampered by the fact that only 28 states register voters by party. For the remaining 22 states, Wikipedia has supplemented with Gallup’s 2014 poll of voter identification.

The 26 states where Democratic Party registration or voter identification outnumbers Republican registration or identification are ranked here. Unfortunately, the District of Columbia wasn’t included, but I was able to find their data through the D.C. Board of Elections.

Top States by Democratic Party Registration or Voter Identification Advantage

State	Partisan Source	Democratic	Republican	Dem Advantage	Rank
District of Columbia	Party Registration	76.6	6.2	70.4	1
Rhode Island	Party Registration	41.5	10.9	30.6	2
Maryland	Party Registration	54.9	25.7	29.2	3
New York	Party Registration	49.4	23.9	25.5	4
Massachusetts	Party Registration	35.3	10.9	24.4	5
West Virginia	Party Registration	49.4	28.9	20.5	6
Delaware	Party Registration	47.5	28.0	19.5	7
Louisiana	Party Registration	46.8	27.7	19.1	8
Vermont	Gallup Polling	47.0	31.0	16.0	9
Connecticut	Party Registration	36.4	20.8	15.6	10
New Mexico	Party Registration	46.6	31.2	15.4	11
California	Party Registration	43.3	28.1	15.2	12
Kentucky	Party Registration	53.4	38.8	14.6	13
Hawaii	Party Registration	49.0	35.0	14.0	14
New Jersey	Party Registration	32.7	19.7	13.0	15
Pennsylvania	Party Registration	49.5	36.7	12.8	16
Illinois	Gallup Polling	47.0	35.0	12.0	17
North Carolina	Party Registration	41.7	30.4	11.3	18
Washington	Gallup Polling	45.0	37.0	8.0	19
Oregon	Party Registration	37.8	29.9	7.9	20
Michigan	Gallup Polling	44.0	37.0	7.0	21
Nevada	Party Registration	39.7	34.6	5.1	22
Minnesota	Gallup Polling	44.0	39.0	5.0	23
Maine	Party Registration	31.9	27.1	4.8	24
Florida	Party Registration	38.8	35.0	3.8	25
Wisconsin	Gallup Polling	43.0	41.0	2.0	26
Oklahoma	Party Registration	43.7	43.6	0.1	27

Source: Wikipedia and District of Columbia Board of Elections (July 2016)

Democratic Party Identification and Ideology

Every year, the Gallup organization polls people on which political party they identify with. This may not be the same as their actual party registration, since 22 states do not register voters by party and because some voters may register as No Party Preference (e.g., independent) voters but still lean towards one party or the other. Those who identified as independent or with a third party in Gallup’s poll were asked which of the two major parties they lean towards, if any. 

Unfortunately, Gallup did not include the District of Columbia. I went back and forth on this, but finally decided to include D.C.’s actual voter registration, just like Wikipedia used Gallup’s identification polling to supplement their party registration table for states that do not register voters by party.

When combining those who identify as Democrats with those who Lean Democratic, Democrats have an advantage in 20 states in Gallup’s polls released in 2016:

Polled Residents Identifying as Democrats or Republicans by State

State	Democrat	Republican	Dem Advantage	Classification	Rank
District of Columbia *	76.6	6.2	70.4	Solid Dem	1
Vermont	51.9	30.2	21.7	Solid Dem	2
Hawaii	51.6	30.8	20.8	Solid Dem	3
Rhode Island	48.3	28.9	19.4	Solid Dem	4
Massachusetts	50.8	32.2	18.6	Solid Dem	5
New York	49.9	31.5	18.4	Solid Dem	6
California	48.1	32.6	15.5	Solid Dem	7
Maryland	49.9	34.9	15.0	Solid Dem	8
New Mexico	48.1	36.5	11.6	Solid Dem	9
Illinois	46.8	36.0	10.8	Solid Dem	10
Connecticut	47.3	36.8	10.5	Solid Dem	11
New Jersey	46.5	36.3	10.2	Solid Dem	12
Washington	46.6	37.5	9.1	Lean Dem	13
Delaware	45.1	39.3	5.8	Lean Dem	14
Oregon	45.0	39.3	5.8	Lean Dem	15
Michigan	42.7	38.7	4.0	Competitive	16
Pennsylvania	44.6	41.6	3.0	Competitive	17
Florida	41.4	40.7	0.7	Competitive	18
Minnesota	42.9	42.4	0.5	Competitive	19
North Carolina	41.5	41.3	0.2	Competitive	20
Ohio	42.2	42.0	0.2	Competitive	20

Source: Gallup, 2016 and District of Columbia Board of Elections (July 2016)  

The classification is Gallup’s own terminology.

I did not include states where respondents who identify as Republican outnumber those who identify as Democrats on this table.

In addition, Gallup polled those respondents about their political ideology, regardless of actual party affiliation. The District of Columbia again was not included and there was no way to find substitute data. Self-identified conservatives outnumbered liberals in all but three states – Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island – though moderates outnumbered conservatives in a majority of the states. I could not add the District of Columbia to this.

Ranking here is by least conservative advantage (e.g., most liberal) to more conservative. A negative Conservative Advantage means liberals outnumber conservatives. Moderates are not used in these calculations.

States by Least Conservative Advantage (Most Liberal), 2016

State	% Conservative	% Moderate	% Liberal	Conservative Advantage	Rank
Vermont	24.4	31.2	39.7	-15.3	1
Massachusetts	26.7	36.6	32.5	-5.8	2
Rhode Island	27.5	38.6	28.4	-0.9	3
New York	29.3	35.7	28.7	0.6	4
Hawaii	28.2	39.0	26.9	1.3	5
California	30.2	35.5	28.6	1.6	6
Connecticut	29.3	37.6	27.7	1.6	6
Oregon	32.3	34.0	29.6	2.7	8
New Jersey	29.5	38.4	26.2	3.3	9
Washington	31.6	36.3	28.2	3.4	10
Maryland	31.1	37.0	26.6	4.5	11
Illinois	31.0	37.2	25.9	5.1	12
New Mexico	33.2	35.8	26.3	6.9	13
Colorado	33.4	36.6	25.3	8.1	14
Delaware	32.5	37.8	23.2	9.3	15
Nevada	34.7	35.6	24.8	9.9	16
Minnesota	34.5	37.4	23.6	10.9	17
Maine	35.4	36.5	24.2	11.2	18
Michigan	34.4	36.8	22.8	11.6	19
New Hampshire	35.3	37.5	23.3	12.0	20
Pennsylvania	35.1	37.5	22.8	12.3	21
Arizona	35.0	37.4	22.2	12.8	22
Virginia	35.3	37.3	21.9	13.4	23
Florida	35.9	36.0	21.9	14.0	24
Wisconsin	37.0	36.6	22.1	14.9	25
Ohio	36.5	38.6	20.2	16.3	26
Iowa	37.3	37.7	20.0	17.3	27
Kansas	37.2	38.1	19.5	17.7	28
Nebraska	37.9	39.4	19.3	18.6	29
Alaska	38.3	40.6	19.0	19.3	30
North Carolina	39.1	36.3	19.6	19.5	31
Texas	39.9	34.5	20.1	19.8	32
Missouri	39.7	35.0	19.7	20.0	33
Indiana	40.3	34.8	19.6	20.7	34
Georgia	39.9	35.0	18.9	21.0	35
Montana	42.0	34.8	18.8	23.2	36
West Virginia	42.0	34.4	18.7	23.3	37
Kentucky	43.1	33.8	18.8	24.3	38
Tennessee	41.7	35.2	17.3	24.4	39
South Carolina	42.7	34.5	17.6	25.1	40
South Dakota	44.0	34.2	18.7	25.3	41
Oklahoma	43.0	35.2	16.7	26.3	42
Louisiana	43.8	33.7	16.9	26.9	43
Mississippi	43.2	32.9	15.6	27.6	44
Wyoming	45.1	32.9	17.5	27.6	44
Utah	44.9	33.5	17.2	27.7	46
North Dakota	47.0	30.3	19.2	27.8	47
Arkansas	45.7	33.5	15.7	30.0	48
Idaho	47.0	34.1	15.2	31.8	49
Alabama	47.5	31.5	15.6	31.9	50

Source: Gallup, 2016

Elected Democrats

Above the local level (which in some states like California are nonpartisan races), Democrats hold 3,430 elected offices. That includes the President and Vice President, 44 U.S. Senate seats, 186 seats in the U.S. House, 18 Governorships, 836 seats in the upper house of State Legislatures, and 2,244 seats in their lower house. That’s 43% of those elected offices. 

Republicans currently hold 56% of those elected offices, including 54 Senate seats, 247 seats in the House, 31 Governorships, 1,126 seats in the upper house of state legislatures, and 3,038 in their lower house. That excludes office holders who are independents or third parties, even if they caucus with one of the major parties. Another 1% of the elected offices are held by Independents and other parties.

To measure Democratic political strength on a state-by-state basis, I looked at each state’s total number of Democrats elected to governorships, the state legislature, and to the U.S. Senate and House, and made that into a percentage to standardize state-by-state. I did not look at municipal, county, or regional officeholders, nor other statewide officeholders such as the state Attorney General or Secretary of State.

Translating the result into a percentage not only helps equalize states with vastly differently Congressional delegations (California’s 53 Representatives and two Senators versus Delaware’s one Representative and two Senators, for example), but also helps standardize states with vastly different legislatures. California, for example, while by far the largest state in the union, only has 80 members in the lower house of its legislature, the State Assembly, while New Hampshire, one of the smaller states with only four electoral votes, has 400 members of its legislature’s lower house, the State House of Representatives.

Based on this approach, only 17 states plus the District of Columbia – a special case I’ll explain below – have a majority of elected officeholders who are Democrats.

Upper and Lower refer to the houses of the State Legislature, which may go by varying names in each state, while Senate and House refer to the state’s Congressional delegation. A D or R indicates whether there are a majority of Democrats or Republicans, whose total is represented by the first number, while a C indicates a Coalition that will be explained below. If there are three numbers, they will be in the order of majority party (indicated by the initial), minority party, and independent or third party officeholders. Any jurisdiction marked with an asterisk (*) also have special circumstances that are explained below the table.

Percentage of Officeholders Who Are Democrats by State

State	Gov	Upper	Lower	Senate	House	# Dems	% Dem	#
Hawaii	D	D 24-1	D 43-8	D 2-0	D 2-0	72	88.89	1
Rhode Island	D	D 32-5-1	D 63-11-1	D 2-0	D 2-0	100	84.75	2
District of Columbia *	D	D 11-0-2		D 1-0-1	D 1-0	14	82.35	3
Massachusetts	R	D 34-6	D 126-34	D 2-0	D 9-0	171	80.66	4
California	D	D 25-14-1	D 52-28	D 2-0	D 39-14	119	67.61	5
New York *	D	C 31-5-7	D 106-44	D 2-0	D 18-9	158	65.02	6
Maryland	R	D 33-14	D 90-51	D 2-0	D 7-1	132	66.33	7
Delaware	D	D 12-9	D 25-16	D 2-0	D 1-0	41	62.12	8
Oregon	D	D 18-12	D 35-25	D 2-0	D 4-1	60	61.22	9
Illinois	R	D 39-20	D 71-47	Tie 1-1	D 10-8	121	61.11	10
Connecticut	D	D 21-15	D 87-64	D 2-0	D 5-0	116	59.49	11
Vermont *	D	D 20-9-1	D 84-55-9	D + I	D 1-0	108	59.34	12
New Jersey	R	D 24-16	D 48-32	D 2-0	Tie 6-6	80	59.26	13
Washington *	D	C 25-24	D 50-47-1	D 2-0	D 6-4	108	51.88	14
New Mexico	R	D 24-18	R 37-33	D 2-0	D 2-1	61	51.69	15
Minnesota	D	D 39-28	R 72-62	D 2-0	D 5-3	109	51.42	16
Colorado	D	R 18-17	D 34-31	Tie 1-1	R 4-3	56	50.91	17
Maine *	R	R 20-15	D 79-68-4	R + I	Tie 1-1	96	50.26	18
Kentucky	R	R 27-11	D 54-45	R 2-0	R 5-1	66	44.90	19
Iowa	R	D 26-14	R 57-43	R 2-0	R 3-1	70	44.59	20
Mississippi	R	R 30-22	R 66-56	R 2-0	R 3-1	79	43.65	21
Nevada	R	R 11-10	R 22-16-1	Tie 1-1	R 3-1	28	41.79	22
Montana	D	R 29-21	R 59-41	Tie 1-1	R 1-0	64	41.56	23
Pennsylvania	D	R 30-20	R 119-84	Tie 1-1	R 13-5	111	40.51	24
New Hampshire	D	R 14-10	R 239-160-1	Tie 1-1	Tie 1-1	173	40.33	25
West Virginia	D	R 18-16	R 64-36	Tie 1-1	R 3-0	54	39.42	26
Michigan	R	R 27-11	R 63-47	D 2-0	R 9-5	65	39.39	27
Arizona	R	R 17-13	R 38-22	R 2-0	R 5-4	39	38.24	28
Louisiana	R	R 25-14	R 61-42-2	R 2-0	R 5-1	58	37.91	29
Virginia	D	R 21-19	R 66-33	D 2-0	R 8-3	58	37.91	30
Wisconsin	R	R 19-14	R 63-36	Tie 1-1	R 5-3	54	37.76	31
South Carolina	R	R 28-18	R 78-46	R 2-0	R 6-1	65	36.11	32
North Carolina	R	R 34-16	R 74-46	R 2-0	R 10-3	65	34.95	33
Alaska	I	R 14-6	R 23-16-1	R 2-0	R 1-0	22	34.38	34
Texas	R	R 20-11	R 98-52	R 2-0	R 25-11	74	33.64	35
Arkansas	R	R 24-11	R 64-36	R 2-0	R 4-0	47	33.10	36
Florida	D	R 26-14	R 82-37-1	Tie 1-1	R 17-10	62	32.63	37
Ohio	R	R 23-10	R 65-34	Tie 1-1	R 12-4	49	32.45	38
Georgia	R	R 38-18	R 119-60-1	R 2-0	R 10-4	82	32.41	39
Missouri	D	R 25-9	R 188-44-1	Tie 1-1	R 6-2	57	27.40	40
Alabama	R	R 26-8-1	R 72-33	R 2-0	R 6-1	42	27.10	41
North Dakota	R	R 32-15	R 71-23	Tie 1-1	R 1-0	39	26.90	42
Indiana	R	R 40-10	R 71-29	Tie 1-1	R 7-2	42	25.93	43
Tennessee	R	R 27-6	R 73-26	R 2-0	R 7-2	34	23.61	44
Oklahoma	R	R 40-8	R 72-29	R 2-0	R 5-0	37	23.57	45
Kansas	R	R 32-8	R 97-28	R 2-0	R 4-0	36	20.93	46
Idaho	R	R 28-7	R 56-14	R 2-0	R 2-0	21	20.00	47
South Dakota	R	R 27-8	R 58-12	R 2-0	R 1-0	20	18.35%	48
Nebraska *	R	Special *	N/A	R 2-0	R 2-1	1	16.67	49
Utah	R	R 23-4-2	R 62-13	R 2-0	R 4-0	17	15.32	50
Wyoming	R	R 26-4	R 51-9	R 2-0	R 1-0	13	13.83	51

Source: Political Party Strength in the U.S. (Wikipedia) and Mayor, Council, Shadow Senator, and Delegate of the District of Columbia (Wikipedia)

Naturally, there are a number of special circumstances that had to be accounted for here.

Maine and Vermont: While Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) are independents, they both caucus with the Democrats for committee assignments and for the purpose of party control of the Senate. I think it’s fair to say that voters in those states cast their votes knowing how those senators will caucus, and therefore I’ve totaled them with the Democrats for these purposes.

New York and Washington state’s upper chambers are led by a Republican-dominated coalition that includes a at least one Democrat and, in New York’s case, five Independent Democrats who identify as Democrats but are not formally aligned with the Democratic Party. I made a judgement call and decided to count the ones who still call themselves Democrats as Democrats, but count the Independent Democrats as Independents.

District of Columbia: Here’s yet another example of where Washington, D.C. is a special case, since as a district rather than a state they do not have a Governor, a legislature, or a proper congressional delegation. After initially considering omitting them, I decided to count their Mayor instead of a Governor and their City Council instead of a legislature. The District gets a Delegate in Congress who can vote in committee and speak on the floor but cannot vote on the floor, so I included her. D.C. also has two non-voting Shadow Senators whose role is really limited to lobbying for D.C. statehood. (Although they also have a Shadow Representative, I chose to only include the Delegate who has more actual authority in Congress.) One of these Shadow Senators, Michael D. Brown, was a Democrat until he changed his registration to Independent in 2014. Because I don’t know enough about his history there, or whether he could be considered to “caucus” with the Democrats (or even if Shadow Democrats participate in that), I decided not to include him as a Democrat. D.C. has one vacancy on the City Council, but because the city’s laws allow the vacant member’s party to appoint the replacement, I have kept it as a Democrat. The District of Columbia therefore has 14 out of 17 officeholders who are Democrats, with the remaining three being Independents. Perhaps you think I should have omitted them entirely, but if so, you can mentally delete them and move the other states up.

Nebraska: The cornhusker state is another unusual case in that their unicameral, single-house legislature is mandated by the state constitution to be nonpartisan. While a majority are likely registered as Republican, listing them all as Independents put the percentage of elected Democrats at under 2%. Their percentage therefore excludes the legislature and only includes their Governor and federal officials. That’s still only one Democrat out of six officeholders, or 16.67%, but that’s better than 1.8%. They still end up in 48th place, just above Utah and Wyoming.

Of course, some of these states have a dominance of Republican officeholders disproportionate to the electorate’s political leanings due to the Republican wave of 2010 and subsequent gerrymandering that helped locked in Republican majorities in legislatures and congressional delegations even while Democrats were continuing to win statewide races. There isn’t much we can do to control for that with this data point. Party Registration and Identification may help offset lower standings here for the overall standings, and if it still rankles, let it be a motivation to get out the vote in midterm elections.

Putting It All Together

Because all of these approaches use vastly different sorts of data, I had to use ordinal ranking to compare them. But I couldn’t simply average the ranked scores to find an overall comparison because not every state appeared on every chart. The Margin of Democratic Presidential Victories, for example, only measured the states where the Democratic candidate won, though I suppose I could have continued to rank states where the Republican candidate won by how narrow the loss was. 

In the end, I used the 29 states (including D.C.) that voted for Obama in 2008 as a baseline guide for the number of states that might legitimately be in contention for the “bluest state,” and rounded that up to an even 30. I then assigned 30 points for every first place ordinal score, 29 points for every second place, 28 points for every third place, and so on. States who placed below 30th, or who didn’t place at all for tables that didn’t reach that far, received zero points for that metric.

Naturally, states that scored too low to even rank on one of these tables were unlikely to be in contention for “Bluest State.” But for the District of Columbia, sometimes they were penalized for simply not being considered a state. I tried to find alternative sources for comparable data, but sometimes it just wasn’t possible.

And the Bluest State Is … Rhode Island

Rhode Island ranks as the “Bluest State” in an analysis across seven data points.

Although Rhode Island didn’t get a single first place ordinal score (unless the District of Columbia is disqualified), it won with consistency. With Democratic voter registration and percentage of elected Democrats, it came in second behind the District of Columbia and Hawaii, respectively. In Gallup’s polls, it came in third for Most Liberal and fourth for Democratic Party identification (third if D.C. is disqualified). For the Democratic Presidential candidate’s margin of victory in the state, Rhode Island was third in 2004, fourth in 2008, and fifth in 2012. 

Massachusetts placed second, followed by Vermont, New York, and Hawaii.

Here we can see the ordinal ranking comparisons of every state using the Democratic presidential candidate's margin of victory in 2004 through 2012, voter registration with the Democratic Party, Gallup poll's 2016 comparison of Democratic Party identification and of liberalness, and the percentage of elected Democrats of all elected officials.

Comparison of “Bluest State” Rankings

State	Rank	Score	2012 Prez	2008 Prez	2004 Prez	DeM Reg.	Dem Party ID	Most Liberal	% of Elected Dems
Rhode Island	1	194	5	4	3	2	4	3	2
Massachusetts	2	186	7	6	2	5	5	2	4
Vermont	3	183	3	3	4	9	2	1	12
New York	4	182	4	5	5	4	6	4	7
Hawaii	5	179	2	2	11	14	3	5	1
District of Columbia	6	178	1	1	1	1	1	X	3
Maryland	7	170	6	7	6	3	8	11	6
California	8	160	8	10	9	12	7	6	5
Connecticut	9	149	12	11	7	10	11	6	11
Delaware	10	142	10	9	12	7	14	15	8
Illinois	11	139	13	8	8	17	10	12	10
New Jersey	12	127	11	16	14	15	12	9	13
Washington	13	120	15	13	13	19	13	10	14
Oregon	14	119	16	15	15	20	15	8	9
New Mexico	15	104	17	17	X	11	9	13	15
Maine	16	90	14	12	10	24	X	18	18
Michigan	17	85	18	14	17	21	16	19	27
Minnesota	17	85	20	21	16	23	19	17	16
Pennsylvania	19	76	25	20	18	16	17	21	24
Nevada	20	54	22	19	X	22	X	16	22
Wisconsin	21	45	21	18	20	26	X	25	31
New Hampshire	21	45	24	22	19	X	X	20	25
Colorado	23	43	26	24	X	X	X	14	17
Florida	24	32	29	27	X	25	18	24	37
Iowa	25	31	23	23	X	X	X	27	20
Kentucky	26	30	X	X	X	13	X	38	19
West Virginia	26	30	X	X	X	6	X	37	26
North Carolina	28	26	X	29	X	18	20	31	33
Louisiana	29	25	X	X	X	8	X	43	29
Ohio	30	24	28	26	X	X	20	26	38
Virginia	31	19	27	25	X	X	X	23	30
AriZona	32	12	X	X	X	X	X	22	28
Mississippi	33	10	X	X	X	X	X	44	21
Montana	34	8	X	X	X	X	X	36	23
Oklahoma	35	4	X	X	X	27	X	42	45
Indiana	36	3	X	28	X	X	X	34	43
Kansas	36	3	X	X	X	X	X	28	46
Nebraska	38	2	X	X	X	X	X	29	49
Alaska	39	1	X	X	X	X	X	30	34
Alabama	40	0	X	X	X	X	X	50	41
Arkansas	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	48	36
Georgia	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	35	39
Idaho	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	49	47
Missouri	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	33	40
North Dakota	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	47	42
South Carolina	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	40	32
South Dakota	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	41	48
Tennessee	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	39	44
Texas	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	32	35
Utah	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	46	50
Wyoming	X	0	X	X	X	X	X	44	51

Other states that did better in some areas did proportionally much worse in others.

The District of Columbia suffered greatly from Gallup not including them in their party identification and ideology polling. The former could be corrected for but not the latter, and the zero there dropped them from first place to sixth. Washington DC was in first place in every other category except percentage of elected Democrats, and even then, the non-Democrats were all Independents who might even be more liberal). Now, perhaps you’d argue that it was unfair to substitute party registration for Gallup’s party identification, even though we did that in the reverse for states that don’t register voters by party. And you might argue that D.C.’s local officials don’t properly equate to the state and federal officials for other states. But regardless, it didn’t stop Rhode Island from being first overall, followed by Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, and Hawaii.

Interestingly enough, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Louisiana – three states that no one considers Hillary Clinton to have a shot of winning – all ended up ranking ahead of Ohio. This despite the fact that Ohio voted for the Democrat for President in the last two elections, and probably will again this time, while the others all voted for the Republican.

My take is that there’s still a Dixiecrat mentality in those states where a lot of voters still think of themselves as Democrats as a legacy from the Civil War but don’t actually vote that way, at least not for President nor a lot of other federal offices. All three states were buoyed by surprisingly high scores for Democratic Party Registration and marginally better than other red states for the percentage of elected Democrats for legislative office, but had very low to nonexistent scores for everything else. Don’t forget that Kim Davis, the County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was elected as a Democrat and didn’t change to being a Republican until 2015 when the brouhaha over the marriage licenses helped her decided which party shared her anti-gay beliefs.

A Tale of Two Washingtons

Back to Washington state, where this investigation began.

The Hill’s methodology notwithstanding, Washington state wasn’t even a contender for "bluest state.” It cracked the top 10 for “Most Liberal,” but only barely – and that was the one category where the District of Columbia didn’t have data. Overall, it finished in 13th place, which was fairly consistent for where it placed in many of the categories.

The discussion came up when someone claimed that they could safely vote third party because their state of Washington was the bluest state in the country. Whether Washington is blue enough is another discussion for elsewhere, but to claim it’s the deepest blue is not supported by any metric I could find. It’s not even the longest blue. Minnesota has voted for a Democrat for President in every election since 1976, even in Reagan’s 1984 landslide. And the District of Columbia has voted for the Democrat in every election since the Twenty-third Amendment gave them the vote in presidential elections starting in 1964. And ultimately, though Washington wasn’t in single digits for any of the categories, the Presidential Margin of Victory is really the most important for his argument. 

And speaking of the District of Columbia, it’s obvious that it would be the clear winner over Rhode Island if Gallup had polled them for liberalness versus conservativeness, the one metric I couldn’t substitute. D.C. came in first for everything else except for the percentage of elected Democrats, where it was third behind Hawaii and Rhode Island. Even that was a judgement call based on whether to consider Shadow Senator Michael D. Brown, a former Democrat turned Independent, as an Independent or, like Angus King and Bernie Sanders, as a Democrat because they still caucus with them. In the end, because I didn’t know enough about Brown’s history or why he changed, or what his current relationship is with other Democrats, I counted him as an Independent. And it made a difference. If I counted him as a Democrat, D.C. would be in second instead of Rhode Island for this category. It wouldn’t have affected Rhode Island’s final standing, but it would have caused D.C. to tie with Hawaii for fifth place overall.

But whether or not the District of Columbia should have even been included in the first place is worth debating. 

Some of you might feel that this really should be limited to states, and that D.C. shouldn’t be included at all. Most states include a balance of urban and rural or at least suburban areas that provide a competing blend of interests and needs not found in an all-urban jurisdiction – especially one where it’s all the same city. No single city can have that same sort of balance that even the smallest states have, however marginally. Still, the District of Columbia has three electoral votes and had the highest Democratic margin of victory in the last three elections. I made the call to try to include them, but if you disagree, just mentally delete them and move everyone else up a rank.

Concluding Thoughts

I honestly didn’t expect Rhode Island would be the winner here. If the District of Columbia didn't take the crown, I thought it would go to Massachusetts or Vermont. They ended up finishing second and third.

Of course, there’s plenty of room to debate methodology, and not just about whether or not to include the District of Columbia or to allow its data substitutions the way I did. 

Some may question why I included the 2012, 2008, and 2004 margin of victory for Democratic candidates for President as separate data points rather than either only using the most recent or rolling all three up into a single three-cycle metric and just using that. I decided that since this whole investigation into “bluest” was triggered by someone’s argument about why they felt it was safe to vote third party in their state, the margin of victory for the presidential candidate was actually the most significant data point and therefore deserved extra weight.

And you could reasonably question why I included the “Most Liberal” metric since it’s an ideology that doesn’t necessarily equate specifically to party. Green Party members consider themselves even more liberal than most Democrats while many Libertarians might consider themselves to be the true conservatives. I chose to include it because such a high percentage of voters who consider themselves independent or third party end up voting for one party or the other, and the ideology is one way to gauge that in a way that even Gallup’s party identification poll could miss.

If you know of other metrics that should be considered, please post your ideas in the comments. If you see errors in the tables, hopefully they’re just transcription errors since I had to recreate the tables by hand, but please note that as well.

Thursday, Aug 25, 2016 · 7:08:45 PM +00:00 · RoyalScribe

I hope people aren’t upset about where their state has ranked in “depth of blueness.” When I first turned 18 in California, everyone said our state would never vote for a Democrat for President except in Democratic blowouts like those for FDR and LBJ. Every state that has fought their way from red or pink or purple to become any shade of blue should be proud of how hard we’ve fought and continued to fight. Current rank is just a comparison to other states, but doesn’t necessarily mean the state isn’t solidly blue. The more solid blue states, the better! My intention was more to argue against complacency for those who think a third party vote in their state might be safer than it actually is. I should also add that this data has no way to measure ideology among elected officials – e.g., blue dog Democrats that might be pretty conservative, or Republicans that nationally might be considered RINOs.

I have endeavored to make corrections noted by people in the comments. If you see other areas to correct, please let me know.