Northern New England vs Southern New England

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Massachusetts and Connecticut are two of the most unequal states in the country. To my knowledge, along with New York, they blow the former Confederacy out of the water. The financial sector looms large in Connecticut and the academic-industrial complex looms large in Massachusetts; both states once contained a very light manufacturing sector. As a result, both states are sharply polarized along class-lines; there's a tremendous cultural divide between Boston and the rest of Massachusetts and another tremendous cultural divide between the New York metro area in CT and the rest of the state. Contrary to stereotypes involving "WASPs" or "Yankee culture", neither state is particularly defined by the elites but, regardless, the elites of the Boston metro area and Fairfield County punch above their weight.

For whatever reason, these stereotypes about WASPs have been applied to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, even though the three above states are, if anything, dominated by the scruffy remnants of long-dead industrial communities, logging towns and small-farming. Yes, there are resort towns in Maine/New Hampshire, some wealthy migrants to all three states but, ultimately, they are incredibly poor in comparison to their counterparts in MA and NH.

Hopefully, if the primary process has imparted any knowledge, it is that New England is not some sort of highly-affluent, highly-educated, enlightened liberal utopia. Sure, the median voter in this region is unusually secular but it's still a hotbed of chauvinistic nationalism and a large degree of racist sentiment, as evidenced by the triumph of LePage in 2014. Further, it would be a mistake to see any of these states as a citadel for Obama-style technocratic, education-focused liberalism.

edit: I ignored Rhode Island because it might as well be on a different planet imo.