Blue States ARE Smarter -- This Time Around, Anyway.

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Notwithstanding widely-acknowledged hoaxes purporting to correlate IQ with political affiliation–most of which can be traced to this Robert Calvert posting with shakily extrapolated data (which many others–including the Economist have sloppily attributed to Richard Lynn’s and Tatu Vanhannen’s IQ and the Wealth of Nations), there is a real and demonstrable correlation in the data from this electoral cycle.[INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT]
Sortable Table at Wikipedia.org

Static Image of Table at PostImage.com
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The above table seeks to correlate IQ- and other state data (from the Michael A. McDaniel study ‘‘Estimating state IQ: Measurement challenges and preliminary correlates’’) with 2012 voting data from Dave Leip’s ‘‘Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections’’.

Using WikiCode to create a sortable table, I entered Estimated IQ, Gross State Product, Health, and Violent Crime, from the McDaniel data–alongside which I entered Popular Vote (%), Margin of Victory (rationalised to reflect the margin [-/+] of a single candidate so that it sorts normally–allowing the values to stand proxy for Liberality or Incumbent Advantage), and Electoral Votes.

Of the 28 most-intelligent states, Mitt Romney won only ten–and nine of them are home to insignificant populations: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming are each entitled to the minimum three electoral votes; Idaho merits four; Nebraska and Wyoming five; Kansas and Utah six; only Indiana–the ninteenth-most intelligent state–was worth a double-digit booty of electoral votes, with eleven.

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Assuming the data are accurate, how significant is a difference of 4 IQ points?

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Which of Cecil’s columns is this about?

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Presumably this one.

Anyway, before one posits causation from these trends (intelligence aligning with political beliefs and forming sound social policy), one ought to consider alternatives. It could be the case that certain factors cause people to flourish (and performance in an IQ test is shaped by environment to at least some degree). These individuals are likely to feel gregarious. In areas with sparser resources and intergenerational poverty (which has a significant impact on intelligence) the privileged will vote for the party they feel protects their advantage.