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Top 10 U.S. States by Democratic Party Support

Name the 10 most Democratic states as measured by the Democratic margin of victory in the last four Presidential elections.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: December 14, 2020
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First submittedSeptember 4, 2016
Times taken46,696
Average score70.0%
Rating4.45
1:30
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%
State
37.4
Hawaii
33.6
Vermont
27.8
Maryland
27.4
Massachusetts
26.6
California
%
State
25.2
New York
22.9
Rhode Island
19.0
Illinois
18.5
Delaware
18.3
Connecticut
+14
Level 60
Sep 5, 2016
If Washington DC was included, would it make this list?
+51
Level 70
Sep 5, 2016
It would be on top I think
+28
Level 84
Sep 5, 2016
DC voted 90.9% for Obama in 2012, so yes - would be at the top of the list.
+23
Level 60
Sep 7, 2016
DC is not a good place for Republicans it seems. Cross that one out from my list of places to possibly live.
+50
Level 82
Sep 7, 2016
Washington is a beautiful area and great place to live.
+2
Level 48
May 31, 2023
I love seetatle
+56
Level 82
Sep 7, 2016
Then why would you say "cross that off" as if you were considering it and then changed your mind when you found out that residents of the district vote Democratic?

Also most people who work in DC live in Virginia or Maryland.

+16
Level 34
Sep 7, 2016
The DC metro area has insane government programs on every corner, costs a fortune, traffic is horrible, and violent crime is higher than many other metro areas. What's not to love? Most career military members dread their time in the DC area.
+21
Level 65
Sep 7, 2016
Eh, DC is a good but expensive place to live. The crime is comparable to other major cities in the U.S. (in between Atlanta and Nashville in the violent crime rate) and is concentrated in the southeast and northeast of the city, which are the poorest areas and probably the areas you're least likely to go to unless you live there. The city is architecturally much more interesting than a lot of American cities, with a lot of old homes preserved in historic districts, to say nothing of all the monuments. The natural landscape around the city is beautiful--rolling hills, whitewater rapids, forests, and a short drive from mountains, other major cities, pretty small towns, and the beach. It has a lot going for it.
+2
Level 60
Sep 7, 2016
What I meant by that @Kalbahamut was that I was considering living there at some point, but as mentioned above, the cost of living is quite expensive, and added with other things, I decided to "cross it out" (figuratively speaking). Voting is one of the least of my concerns when thinking about living in a place.
+4
Level 72
Sep 7, 2016
The DC area is a nice place...if you have money. It's probably very hard to relocate here from most other areas of the country.

There are plenty of republicans in my neighborhood in NoVA.

+14
Level 82
Sep 7, 2016
DC is a beautiful city with tons of things to do and see. Northern Virginia is one of the nicest areas in the country. Among the most diverse areas in the world. Some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the USA. Good schools, good hospitals, great options abound for food, shopping, entertainment, culture, and nature. It's quite cheap next to Norway. Quite expensive next to Ukraine. The traffic situation is worse than Mayberry or Juneau, but a dream come true compared to Riyadh or Cairo or Manila. You could live there 30 years and never once see a crime of any kind more serious than jaywalking or exceeding the speed limit quite easily. I guess it's all relative.
+4
Level 35
Jun 6, 2017
It has always voted for a Democratic president
+2
Level 77
Aug 30, 2017
Cost of living isn't expensive out there. It's only housing. That's literally the only difference between DC and St. Louis. Housing in STL is affordable, housing in DC is not. Just watch any of the HGTV shows. They always have folks buying homes in DC. Like 1000 square feet for $235,000. Just stupid expensive.
+9
Level ∞
Aug 30, 2017
$235 per square foot isn't that expensive really. San Francisco is over $1,000 per square foot nowadays.
+4
Level 71
Aug 31, 2017
235$ per square feet is cheap, its way more affordable than for example my home country sweden where the average is about 800+$ per square feet or 7500$ per square meter
+5
Level 82
Nov 6, 2017
Right. And if you get a place in... Manassas... or... somewhere on the Maryland side I don't know which areas are cheapest anymore... you will pay considerably less. It's too expensive for my tastes personally but it's not that expensive relatively speaking to live out in the suburbs. Not crazy expensive like Sweden. I've lived all over ther world but spent a greater portion of my life there than anywhere else and honestly have no idea what the negative comments above are in reference to unless they simply lack the perspective I detailed. Everything is relative, I suppose.
+3
Level 62
Dec 21, 2017
DC is a truly disgusting city. The streets are dirty, trash is thrown on the ground, everywhere you go feels dangerous, people aren't friendly. I could go on. One of the worst big cities I've ever been to.
+4
Level 70
Feb 14, 2019
I recently went to DC. The food wasn't great, but apart from that I agree with what @kal is saying. It was much nicer than New York in my opinion. It didn't feel at all dangerous and the people were pretty friendly. I don't think your political stances should make much difference to your experience to the city, but it is possible that different people will genuinely have very different opinions of the city for other reasons.
+3
Level 82
Feb 14, 2019
TM: you just don't know where to go to eat if you had bad food there. I said options abound, not that every place you eat is going to be good. We've still got McDonald's.
+6
Level 82
Mar 16, 2019
I also see a lot of comments from conservatives claiming that they had to flee California as it was a socialist cesspool or something similarly ludicrous. These places are objectively nice places to live. And when I lived in California myself for a few years as a young man who was still religious and leaned conservative on most issues, I was still able to acknowledge that fact. I think some just feel the need to hate them because of their politics.
+3
Level 70
Mar 19, 2019
Sure, but I was just giving my subjective experience of the city. Great food was not one of the things I was able to enjoy. It wasn't terrible though, certainly better than in some other places I have been.
+4
Level 82
May 16, 2019
You can find bad food everywhere if you look in the wrong places or don't bother putting any effort in to finding good places. I try to avoid the pitfall I see so many tourists in when they characterize the food of a place based on the 5 meals they had, which were usually all just an afterthought to their itinerary anyway. But even I've been guilty of this sometimes. But anyway you can find amazing cuisine all over the DC area from pretty much any place you can imagine. Great Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Salvadorian, Lebanese, Italian, Indian, Afghan, etc. So much variety and quality at the same time. Good American food, too, if you know where to go. But the thing I like most about the area is that it's among the most diverse and international places in the world, so, it's nice to have so many options.
+3
Level 22
Nov 23, 2019
@Gamer1162 The homicide rate may be very high, but I lived there for 4 years and I was completely fine! I think it's just the places you need to be aware about. It wasn't as bad as you think. You may see the research but they are assuming because of what happens. They probably don't even live there! Go and see for yourself before believing these stories. If you still don't want to go because of your political belief that is fine! But, don't believe with the ears of reporters. They always make up things.
+2
Level 43
Feb 15, 2020
I'm from Illinois and trust me there are only a handful of places here that even compete with DC. Luckily I live in one of them, Evanston.
+5
Level 43
Feb 15, 2020
Also did someone really say that St. Louis is better than DC?Lord.
+6
Level 82
May 26, 2020
Actually it has indeed been shown that people who are conservative tend to be predisposed to having a stronger disgust response than those who lean liberal. They react more negatively to things that are unfamiliar, and are much more given to a strong fear response. I'm not sure if this correlates to what you would define as "intestinal fortitude"... but if someone doesn't like a place because it contains people unlike them in thought or kind, or they are easily dissuaded from visiting a or staying in a place that is different or unusual to them... I think it would make sense to say that they lacked this. There are other ways you could define it, though, and other examples of things that might demonstrate it that conservatives might fare better on? As long as it's something familiar to them... maybe... working on a farm or rural living? Hunting wild animals? Voting for an orange mentally unstable orangutan? These are all things more liberals would find disgusting and hard to do.
+1
Level 48
May 31, 2023
who shown
+6
Level ∞
Dec 14, 2020
@kalbahamut. That study would seem to be a little too convenient to be believable. Put it this way. Would it have been published had it shown the opposite result? Given the replication crisis, one should be very skeptical of results which tend to give political cover to one group of people at the expense of another.

See, my political opponents are not just wrong, they're bad people. This study proves it!

+5
Level 82
Dec 27, 2020
you are making value judgments when the study is making none. The results seem very plausible and make a lot of sense. and your opinions QM are not automatically objective and impartial by default. You have your own biases and I run into people a lot who think like you do - who look down on others who they see as partisan, proclaiming themselves impartial, while usually knowing less about many issues than those they look down on simply by virtue of the fact that they generally dislike politics and don't learn that much about them. But they still get their opinions and information from somewhere. The assumption that both sides of every argument are automatically equal and all parties are bad and nothing that seems to suggest otherwise can be trusted is every bit as myopic as the view that one political party or the other is always in the right. the study, if you don't want to just assume.
+3
Level 82
Dec 27, 2020
other studies, which also don't make value judgments about these physiological responses.
+3
Level 77
Dec 27, 2020
I’ve also heard of the research kal has provided. It does make sense, even from a nonpartisan standpoint - conservatives tend to use more fear politics (“immigrants will destroy American industry, the Dems will raise your taxes”, etc.) while liberals are more idealistic (“free college will be great, Medicare for all will solve your problems”, etc.). Climate change is a notable exception to this rule.
+2
Level 78
Dec 27, 2020
The big question now is whether your disgust response was stronger when you were younger?
+4
Level ∞
Dec 27, 2020
Of course, everyone has their own biases. I am no different than anyone else. One of my biases is that, by default, we should be skeptical of studies in the realm of psychology. So many studies been retracted. Studies that would seem to denigrate one party at the expense of another are especially likely to be flawed, especially since only something like 5% of academics are conservative. But don't abandon all hope in scientific objectivity just yet. There has been pushback against disgust reaction studies. It's likely the phenomenon is simply an artifact of that way the studies are constructed rather than any useful statement about conservatives and liberals:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167219880191?journalCode=pspc

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/dl4u2r/disgust_is_not_a_conservative_emotion_series_of/

+3
Level 77
Dec 27, 2020
Just because a researcher is liberal does not mean their results will be biased if the experiment is designed properly - that’s the whole point of science. However, the point still stands that the overwhelming body of research conducted by liberal researchers would logically denigrate conservatives simply by experimental design because that’s what they would think of when designing experiments whether they realize it or not. It would be interesting to see more research into happiness vs political leaning, as I remember the “happiest states” quiz was saturated with conservative states. The political narrative is so engrossed in negative stories these days that that may have skewed research one way or another given the partisan leaning QM mentioned in research (though it’s interesting to ponder why it is there in the first place, again as QM mentioned).
+3
Level 77
Dec 27, 2020
Returning to the original purpose of this thread - I visited DC a few years ago, and enjoyed it quite a lot. For reference, I stayed in a neighborhood near DuPont circle (if I remember the name correctly). It was substantially nicer than my home city of Beantown, probably in my eyes due to its urban planning (L’enfant knew what he was doing!) and green space. It felt more like a compact and busy suburb than a sprawling urban metropolis to me.
+3
Level 82
Mar 4, 2022
It's more likely that criticism of the studies was flawed and biased from what I've seen than that the studies, all of them, were themselves flawed and biased. Pretty "convenient" to assume the latter thing, based on comments on Reddit, for example, if it confirms a presupposed bias that Republicans and Democrats are equally terrible - and anyone, or anything, suggesting otherwise must be themselves biased. Further, as I pointed out twice above, to even believe that the studies say something "bad" about conservatives or Republicans requires making a value judgment. Which is something that the study doesn't do. You could just as easily use different phrasing to try and make it seem like the study said something "good" about conservatives - that they were not more fearful or easily disgusted... use words with different connotations that mean the same things... say... they're more vigilant, for example. More risk-aware. Or trust more in the familiar and reliable.
+3
Level 82
Mar 4, 2022
Is that really a radical position to take? To suggest that conservatives are more likely to prefer what is known to them or traditional? More likely to dislike something they saw as new, different, strange or foreign? If your kneejerk reaction to hearing this, almost patently obvious, thing is to accuse the researchers of bias or seek out information confirming that suspicion.... I'd say that this points pretty clearly to your own bias.
+1
Level 41
Jun 15, 2022
@Kal - Quizzer1162 is a Republican, clearly. Ignore this numpty.
+2
Level 82
Aug 10, 2022
I'm politically unaffiliated.
+4
Level 32
Jan 9, 2018
I think this comment has too many replies...maybe this is the comment with the most replies?
+1
Level 71
Jan 9, 2018
No.
+8
Level 71
Jan 9, 2018
It's most likely a Cyprus debate comment xD
+8
Level 82
Feb 14, 2019
They were on EuroVision!!
+5
Level 56
Sep 7, 2016
8 of these are in the Northeast or close to it.
+2
Level 59
Dec 28, 2020
I mean Illinois isn't really 'close' to the Northeast. It is one of the westernmost states in the Rust Belt.
+5
Level 74
Sep 7, 2016
In most quizzes relating to the Democratic party, it's usually a good bet to start with Northeast coastal states and then move slightly inward and then hit the Western coastal states. Most elections, whenever they show an electoral map, it's always a little bit of blue sandwiching a lot of red (although you do sometimes get some blue in the middle from IL, MN, WI).
+3
Level 67
Sep 7, 2016
If you look at the electoral map from 2004, you can see that every state that went for John Kerry either bordered Canada or bordered states that bordered Canada. For example, California borders Oregon, which borders Washington...and all three went for Kerry. Connecticut borders Massachusetts, which borders Vermont (which borders Canada), and all three of those states went for Kerry. You can draw a straight line to Canada from every state that went for Kerry (except Hawaii, which borders nothing) without crossing any red state. I always remember that when recalling which states are blue and which are red. Of course, that was 12 long years ago by now...
+6
Level 72
Sep 7, 2016
But, California doesn't border a state that borders Canada.
+3
Level 63
Sep 7, 2016
That's crap. Maryland borders no state that borders Canada unless you count Pennsylvania's tiny coast along Lake Erie. The same thing is true for Delaware. Hawaii doesn't border Canada either, and as someone else said, California not only doesn't share a border with Canada, it doesn't even share a border with a state that shares a border with Canada.

And the following states not bordering Canada have now gone Democratic in 2 straight elections AND are leaning Democratic this year:

Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida. Among others.

+5
Level 67
Sep 8, 2016
Perhaps I didn't explain it well. You can go from any state that voted for Kerry straight to Canada without passing through a red state. Take California: you can go directly north to Canada and only pass through Oregon and Washington, both of which went for Kerry. From Maryland, you go up through Pennsylvania and New York, both of which went for Kerry. I mentioned in my original post that Hawaii, for obvious reasons, is kind of beyond the scope of the point. And I said it was the *2004* electoral map. Calm yourself. I was just offering an observation.
+4
Level 20
Sep 9, 2016
@jmellor13 I'm not exactly sure what these other two were reading because you definitely explained your train of thought well enough and you clearly state your data comes from the 2004 election. Gotta love when people don't read and proceed to critique your comment
+3
Level 73
Jan 9, 2018
@jmellor13, technically speaking, to get from California to Canada you still have to go through republican areas. If you look at the 2016 election results for each county. The borders of California, Oregon, and Washington are all separated by red counties.
+4
Level 82
Aug 16, 2020
Yeah California north of Sacramento and Oregon outside of the big cities and their suburbs are all very conservative areas.
+7
Level 75
Jan 9, 2018
It also depends on whether you are talking about the present or historically. When I was young in the '60s we didn't talk about "red vs blue" states, but if we had, the colors would have been quite different from what they are today - the solidly Democratic south versus conservative California, for example. As I mentioned in a comment on a different quiz, the red vs. blue thing isn't a good description IMO. Many states are barely one or the other. Characterizing them as completely red or blue is unfair to the many voters from the other side who live there. I've lived enough decades to know that what goes around comes around, and states will change their colors in the future as issues and populations change.
+9
Level 77
Sep 7, 2016
A quick calculation using the data available on Wikipedia comparing the 10 states on the top democratic lists vs. the top republican lists. The people in the top democratic states live on average 2.66 years longer. The people in the top democratic states average about 36% higher annual income.
+13
Level 80
Feb 25, 2017
Remember back when the Democrats were the party of the working man? And now you take pride in the fact that rich people vote Democrat.
+4
Level 62
Dec 21, 2017
There's been a reversal ever since the democrats got in bed with Wall Street and Big Pharma. Now the democrats do the bidding of corporations, whereas Trump and the GOP and doing everything they can to help out the average American. The tax break Trump just passed will save working-class Americans $2-3k every year.
+19
Level 82
Jan 9, 2018
Conservative talk radio has turned peoples brains to mush, conspiracy theorists have been banging on so long and often that it actually appears there's weight and genuine history to their preposterous theories, there isnt. Modern American conservatives appear to place themselves as the defenders of traditional values and the working man, all the while getting fat on the backs of the people they claim to represent. It's a complete s*** show. The UK isnt any better either.
+3
Level 75
Jan 9, 2018
Not sure why you ended on that little jab to the UK but you are right - the only major socialist party (at least in England) took a huge step to the right with Blair at the helm, undermining the party's principles and selling out to the corporate world.

It succeeded in getting them voted in at the time but left us with a system of right-wing politics. Now we have austerity, a failing NHS (which should be one of the proudest institutions in the world), terrible public transport, etc

Corbyn is moving them back towards where they have been historically but there is resistance unfortunately

+15
Level 51
Jan 9, 2018
Idea: maybe neither political party is heaven on earth. Maybe politics and the idea that Republican and Democrat are the only options are stupid.
+6
Level 66
Sep 30, 2018
Both major parties in the US are corporate owned. The biggest difference is which corporations have bought into which party.
+8
Level 82
Jan 4, 2019
kenpo: while there is a sliver of truth that could be extracted from your cynical and over-simplistic sentiment, it's not close enough to being true that repeating it is not very harmful. There are extremely substantial differences between the parties, especially today in the era of Trump. When the choice was between Bill Clinton and George HW Bush? Maybe not so much. But now? The difference could not be more stark.
+4
Level 72
Sep 7, 2016
I can't believe Washington and Oregon didn't make this list.
+3
Level ∞
Dec 14, 2020
Currently sitting at #12 and #14.
+3
Level 71
Dec 27, 2020
^I was a bit surprised by those and also New Jersey
+2
Level 87
Aug 29, 2017
I assume you don't mean the "most Republican states" in the description of this quiz.
+2
Level 65
Aug 30, 2017
Exactly, The directions are contradictory. I thought I was looking for Republican states , then when none of my first 5 guesses or so worked, I started trying Democratic ones.
+3
Level ∞
Aug 30, 2017
Burned again by copy-paste. Fixed now.
+3
Level 90
Aug 29, 2017
Amazed that New Jersey didn't make this list. It hasn't voted Republican since Reagan.
+4
Level 71
Feb 12, 2019
New Jersey voted for Bush 41 in 1988. While New Jersey is a pretty reliable win for Democrats, the election is usually within 10% in most statewide races. NJ also had a couple Republican Governors to win two terms since the 1990s.
+1
Level 93
Jul 11, 2023
Even recently, Gov. Murphy came *really* close to losing, so the state is more competitive for state-level races than it is at the federal level. Still blue though.
+2
Level 45
Dec 23, 2017
Pretty easy but for some reason it took me a while to get illinois
+2
Level 27
Jan 9, 2018
I would've thought Minnesota but this recent election it was right on the cusp (to be honest it kind of made me sad)
+2
Level 93
Jul 11, 2023
Minnesota has the longest current streak of voting Democrat, having been blue in every election since 1972. However, while Democrats do consistently win there, it isn't by the massive margins seen by Hawaii or Vermont or even Maine.
+2
Level 42
Jan 10, 2018
got illinois with 1 second left
+2
Level 71
Mar 1, 2018
Can I please see your source? The statistic for Hawaii seemed a little high so I looked at the results in the past 4 elections on Wikipedia, did the math, and it only came out to about 15%, which is a lot different than 32%. Or am I missing something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Hawaii,_2004

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Hawaii,_2008

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Hawaii,_2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Hawaii,_2016

+2
Level ∞
Dec 14, 2020
Source is Wikipedia. The quiz is correct.
+3
Level 62
Aug 28, 2018
Vermont apparently is the state that has voted Republican than most, yet now Republicans easily lose the state.
+2
Level 82
Sep 28, 2018
Does anyone know why Vermont is so much different politically than New Hampshire?
+7
Level 66
Sep 30, 2018
Manchester, the largest city in NH, is fairly conservative, being a very white, upper-middle class city that some might say serves more as a glorified suburb of Boston than its own thing. It's also VERY tax friendly so those who benefit from that would naturally favour Republicans.

The rest of the state is more in line with Vermont/Massachusetts politically which pulls it over the Dem line.

Vermont conversely doesn't have a lot of white-collar workers and has a strong descendancy from hippie culture which probably turned the tide away from Republican support over there as that party became more right-wing.

+3
Level 82
Feb 19, 2019
Interesting. In most states it's the opposite situation: urban areas that are very blue or deep purple surrounded by a rural or suburban sea of light purple or red.
+2
Level 55
Dec 17, 2020
@LordDespAus, how'd you figure that one out. Manchester and Nashua are very blue.
+3
Level 67
Dec 27, 2020
I don't know enough about New Hampshire generally to offer meaningful comment, except to say that I lived in Boston for five years, and several of my friends' wealthy families moved to New Hampshire for tax purposes and to get away from Boston's liberal politics. Manchester and Nashua are both less than an hour (with no traffic) from Boston, so they could move without surrendering access to the city when they wanted it. Vermont is way too far west for that, especially if you want to live anything resembling a city. Burlington is up in the northeast corner of the state. After that, you're looking at "cities" with like 15,000 people. So I would imagine New Hampshire gets a disproportionate share of conservative Bostonians. Whether that share is appreciable enough to move the needle...I have no idea.
+1
Level 77
Dec 27, 2020
I have lived in MA for a while now but I’m soon to go to NH for college. I’m curious as to how different things will be there...
+2
Level 54
May 4, 2019
I've always been let toward the idea that states with more picturesque and scenic living tend to vote blue in rural areas. Obviously there are a few exceptions (West Virginia, Appalachia, Idaho, Montana) but the northeast is breathtaking, as is California and the Pacific Northwest. More bland areas tend to lean red such as the great plains. There's normally a more carefree lifestyle in areas like this.
+2
Level 67
Dec 27, 2020
And Colorado! Maybe our most beautiful state.
+1
Level 63
Mar 16, 2019
Got them all with 0:09 remaining at 2:03:19 PM on March 16, 2019. This was an easy quiz for me, considering I live in one of these states.
+3
Level 48
Aug 14, 2019
TRUMP 2020 BABY!!
+16
Level 51
Nov 23, 2020
well, he lost :)
+2
Level 79
Dec 27, 2020
It was quite close :)
+2
Level 63
Apr 27, 2023
Mhm... seven million votes is super close
+2
Level 67
Jun 18, 2023
Second most votes in US history tho
+1
Level 66
Aug 26, 2023
He would've won with 40k more votes in the right places. It was indeed quite close.
+1
Level 39
Dec 27, 2020
I knew the comments would be like this...
+6
Level ∞
Dec 28, 2020
How are they? They seem pretty good to me, given the subject. I've probably deleted 100 low effort or inflammatory comments however.
+1
Level 74
Mar 2, 2021
Good lord I forgot New York
+1
Level 25
May 24, 2021
Good grief I did too
+1
Level 18
Apr 29, 2022
surprised Washington isn't here
+2
Level 82
May 19, 2022
If this was based only on the last election, and not on the last four, then Washington would be in the top 10 and so would New Jersey.
+1
Level 18
Apr 20, 2023
Just go by highest crime rates and racial perversion
+1
Level 63
Apr 27, 2023
And lowest gun violence
+2
Level 65
May 10, 2023
Just out of curiosity, which statistics are you using for "crime rate"? From what I can tell, the states with the highest crime rate tend to be pretty evenly split between Democratic and Republican states, while states with the lowest crime rate tend to be Democratic states. If we're talking violent crime, Republican states dominate the most violent section, with the exception of New Mexico (and DC).