Talk Elections

Expanding the concept of Nclib's poll. :)

Write-in: New Hampshire and Vermont.

Hard choices!!!! Minnesota and North Dakota I suppose.

I vote Washington Idaho, but I didn't know that once we view results we can't vote, oh well.

You can still vote. Just refresh the page, or hit the back button on your browser.

Maryland and Virginia are really the only states on this list that are different simply because of borders.

-N.Mex. and Okla. are only slightly bordered
-Ill./Ind. is explained mostly (but not only) by Chicago
-Eastern Wash. is quite similar to Northern Idaho
-Inland Calif. is relatively conservative (and Ariz. is pretty moderate anyway)
-The other three pairings (Mass./N.H., N.Dak./Minn, Iowa/Neb.) have very different population densities (and western Iowa is also very conservative)

But MD and VA have comparable densities and race distributions, but are very different culturally and politically.

Good point. I was looking more at the totality of each state, not taking into consideration if the parts of the states actually near the border are similar to each other or not. If the question was "What state border causes the greatest political change when crossing it?" then MD/VA would win hands down. Of course, you are free to apply whatever criteria you'd like yourself. :)

If DC counted as a state, than the District of Columbia and Virginia, of course, would win this poll easily.

MA/NH

taxes, guns, intrusiveness, constitutions

Sure, socially they aren't too different, but that's not what really matters to me.

But we're compairing the states, not the parts of the states. Our states are pretty oddly divided; if they were defined more by the natural features states would probably have larger political differences.

And I figured out the refrsh thing, thanks though! :D

MD and VA, I have experienced that. The differences go back to the Civil War, and all throughout History, you can tell that MD and VA are almost always different colors, with VA going with the South, and MD with the Northeast or Midwest on occasion.

Not sure if this is an option (the poll is closed), but I vote Colorado (a pretty Democratic state) with Wyoming (the most Republican state in the country).

It is pretty funny to look back at these answers from 17 years in the future.  All these people answering "Virginia and Maryland" just need to add "West" to their answer.   

Yeah, Virginia/Maryland was a good answer back then, but not now. Now West Virginia/Maryland is likely the answer in terms of considering the entire states without taking into account borders.

But in terms of:


Obviously, it would no longer be MD/VA, but what would it be? MA/NH? IA/MO? GA/NC? CO/WY?

CO/WY is a reasonable guess. ID/WA is another - ID is a lot like Eastern WA, but WA as a whole is not Eastern WA.

Paul Gosar's very red district contains almost all of Arizona's border with California. And Arizona may be getting bluer, but it still voted almost 30 points to the right of California.

But AZ still voted for Biden, while Idaho didn't. Also, Idaho voted Trump by 30 points, while WA voted Biden by 20.
That is a 50 point gap.

Illinois and Kentucky

It wouldn’t pass the which boarder changes the most test though, because the far southern reaches of Illinois are pretty much our own little chunk of Appalachia.


But, I don’t think there are stark cultural boarder changes anywhere, state lines don’t map to human geography very well.

West Virginia and Virginia.

Illinois and Indiana.

Utah and Colorado.

Washington and Idaho.

New Mexico and Texas (for now).

Illinois and Missouri (except the St. Louis metro).

Or perhaps West Virginia (Trump's 2nd best state) with Maryland (which gave Biden a landslide victory).

I agree that it's actually Colorado and Utah, not Colorado and Wyoming.

Wyoming is Colorado without a single city in it. Utah on the other hand is defined by Mormonism, whereas even redneck Colorado is pretty secular. In Utah, you need to go to a state run store to get booze, but in Colorado weed is legal, cocaine is abundant, and shrooms will soon be legal too. Even though Salt Lake and Denver are superficially similar, try saying a swear word on the street.

I’ve always felt like it’s Illinois and Indiana. I know we border Kentucky, but it’s a small border on the southern tip, so there’s not a lot of interaction between folks in the two states. Illinois and Indiana are connected in many ways and represent very different politics.

I can also see good arguments for Washington/Idaho, Maryland/WV, and Minnesota/ND, but like IL/KY, I feel like population centers of those states aren’t as connected as IL and IN are.

Ehh, isn't Illinois just basically (politically speaking) Indiana with a massive city added to it?  I don't feel like crossing the Illinois-Indiana border results in a significant sudden cultural difference.  I'd look for state lines where there are significant cultural trend changes basically exactly on the state line.  An underrated possibility might be Missouri and Iowa, although this is gradually decreasing.  Looking at a religion map shows that, like much of the South, Baptists dominate Missouri right up to the border with Iowa, but they have almost no presence right across the border into Iowa.  Likewise, historically, the rural Northern Missouri counties have voted substantially to the right of the rural Southern Iowa ones.

Florida-Georgia is another possibility.  I once saw a map of Cuban ancestry, and the Florida-Georgia border was plainly evident.  Add that to the number of retirees and vacation communities in North Florida, and it's actually decently different from South Georgia.

Politically, Massachusetts-New Hampshire is another good option, especially with the exurbs of Boston in Southeastern New Hampshire typically voting to the right of the state.