There as been a lot made of the "culture war" between the left and the right. There has also been a fortune spent trying to explain and predict (often unsuccessfully) how different demographics will interact with our two political parties and, therefore, how various states will vote.
All of this belies the fact that one variable seems to predict a state's culture-- at least electorally-- very accurately. That variable is post high school education.
These are the places that rank highest in percentage of population attaining post-high school degrees:
1. Washington D.C.
2. Massachusetts
3. Maryland
4. Connecticut
5. Virginia
6. New York
7. Vermont
8. New Jersey
9. Colorado
10. New Hampshire
11. Illinois
12. Delaware
13. Washington
14. California
15.Oregon
16. New Mexico
17. Minnesota
18. Pennsylvania
19. Kansas
20. Georgia
I think the pattern is pretty clear: the top 17 states in educational attainment ALL vote reliably Democratic in every single national election.
This is an incredible correlation that cannot merely be a coincidence or an accident. It makes me wonder: is the "culture war" really an overblown idea? Might it more accurately be described simply as "the education gap?"
It also suggests the question: "Does more education make someone more liberal, or are liberals just more likely to seek out more education?"
Let's say we had free college-- like many countries-- would that create a more liberal population? Could that be one of the reasons Republicans are so dead set on fighting it?
Btw, statistics suggest that the more education someone has, the more likely they are to be liberal regardless of what field that education is in. So, while I know a lot of conservatives will be tempted to explain away this trend by blaming the supposed "indoctrination" that happens in women's studies, or anthropology, or the humanities in general, this argument doesn't hold a lot of water; since, degrees in mathematics or the hard sciences are also correlate with more liberal views.