name two states taht are very different politically...

[minionofmidas]

NH and MA is of course a nonsense answer. Southern NH is basically the most affluent part of the Boston outer suburbia.

Lemme see...apart from the more obvious answers given as yet in the thread, can I come up with some other ones?
Indiana isn't as different from its neighbors as its voting history suggests...the components are basically the same, just the mix is different.
How similar are Iowa and Missouri? Iowa and Nebraska? Missouri and Tennessee?
Mississippi and Arkansas are in ways very different (one epitomizing the deep south, one the upper south, one long with a black majority, with a black pop. now long declining, one always overwhelmingly white, with a black population share not really fallen much, one with whites voting as a bloc, the other with the most Dem-friendly white population in the south), in others very similar (ie a history of poverty and cotton share cropping, only one dominant city)...

How about Oklahoma and Colorado?

[minionofmidas]

How about Oklahoma and Colorado?

Utah and New Mexico
Alaska and Hawaii
Nevada and Utah
Virginia and West Virginia

Where's the Hawaii-Alaska border? Must've missed the news about Juneau seceding from Alaska and joining Hawaii.
Nevada wouldn't be all that un-Utahn if you took Las Vegas out.
Similarly, Va and WVa have lots of similar areas, just a) the mix is different b) Virginia also has some area types lacking in WVa.
Okay, so I suppose you could say that NW Oklahoma and SE Colorado are similar too...but they're pretty small portions of either state.

[minionofmidas]

How about Oklahoma and Colorado?

Utah and New Mexico
Alaska and Hawaii
Nevada and Utah
Virginia and West Virginia

Where's the Hawaii-Alaska border? Must've missed the news about Juneau seceding from Alaska and joining Hawaii.

The Aleutians are only 2300 miles from Honolulu.  San Francisco is more than 2400.

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Reno is like Provo only with gambling, quicky marriages, prostitution, silver mining?  At least Las Vegas was founded by Mormans.

Not sure about Reno (though the area votes conservative-ish). But rural Nevada is just as Republican as rural Utah, and in parts almost as Mormon. (And even emptier.)

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Virginia and Indiana are the most consistently Republican states east of the Mississippi.  It is considered an upset if the Republicans win one of West Virginia's congressional seats.  What does it mean to be lacking in WVa?
[/quote]Virginia has been consistently Republican in presidentials over the past fifty years, but its congressional delegation was dem-dominated until quite recently (just as all over the South.) The Reps do hold a seat in W.Va. and have for quite a while, and the state's only got three of'em.
As to the areas...Southern W.Va. appears to be quite like  Southwestern Virginia. Central W.Va. more like Northeastern Va. Obviously Wheeling is very much a Northern Rustbelt city unless you also consider vast parts of Ohio Southern, but that's not a large part of W.Va. (though larger in pop. than in area.) What W.Va. doesn't have but Va. has in abundance is a) NOVA b) that rich rural white conservative coastal area. And no Black Belt, but Va. doesn't have all that much of that either.

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Do you consider the panhandle to be NWOK?

[/quote]Part of it. I think the area just east and southeast of the Panhandle to just outside OKCity is pretty similar.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, McDowell's the blackest county in WVa. About 10% IIRC.
That map doesn't help.