Which is more ridiculous?

[TDAS04]

Well?

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Both are states that don't perfectly fit a regional box. I think Indiana is more crucial to defining what the Midwest is all about than say Kentucky is for the South, so I'd give a slight edge to Option 1.

However Kentucky does seem to feature characteristics that make it so conservative in our current and near future alignment since you have the culture of the white rural South (to the south of Louisville and west of I-75), cities with minorities and white liberals vs. white flighted suburbs and exurbs characteristic of the Midwest around the Golden Triangle of Louisville, Lexington,  and Cincinnati,  and of Appalachia which is really its own distinct region to the east of I-75.

However southern sounding accents are common across Kentucky and even in Indiana too but they are much less distinctly southern in nature compared to those you would find in the Deep South.

It's just a matter of the lines having to be drawn somewhere, and the Ohio River is more suitable for doing that in a simple than say somewhere farther north or south. The Knobs are a better marker of the division imo since it does feel like Bullitt County is more similar to places like Cherokee County, GA while the other suburban/exurban county, Oldham is more of a mini-Waukesha County.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I suppose Option 1 but all three poll options are ones one can rationally choose.

[Bismarck]

Both are ridiculous but calling Indiana southern is worse. No state that didn’t have slavery is southern. We are in the corn belt for goodness sakes. You could actually make a case for Louisville being a midwestern city, because it feels like a smaller Cincinnati and Cincinnati is definitely midwestern.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Marginally more option 1 than 2.

[beesley]

Indiana is in no way Southern, but if you didn't know anything about Kentucky, calling it Midwestern might not be so egregious from a pure location perspective.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

As a non-American Kentucky is the archetypical southern state to us. Probably thanks to the KFC but most non-americans would assume it's a deep south state.