Daytona Beach, FL - A personal finance website's new study sets out to answer the question as to which states better represent the U.S. electorate.
And their findings say that Florida ranks 2nd in the nation.
According to WalletHub, as we look back on the first two nominating contests – Iowa, which was plagued with technical difficulties, and New Hampshire – we must consider one controversial topic that surfaces every primary season: the apparent “whiteness” of both states.
With that information in mind, their analysts asked one question: How could two mostly rural states with majority-white populations fairly represent the national electorate?
Under that logic, handing the earliest positions in the primaries to the Hawkeye and Granite states would understandably seem undeserved. But, WalletHub says that many experts have argued that entitlement to the earliest position in the primaries should be based on multiple factors, not solely on a state’s racial composition.
That's why they compared the likeness of the United States with Iowa and New Hampshire and found that these states mirror the nation by 89 percent and 82 percent, respectively. Then, they decided to see which of the 50 states are truly representative of the U.S. population, leading to their new findings, the 2020 Electorate Representation Index.
To determine which states most closely resemble the sociodemographic makeup of the United States and its stances on certain national issues, WalletHub examined five key dimensions as they relate to the remaining primary-election states.
Those dimensions were sociodemographics, economy, education, religion, and public opinion. They also compiled 31 relevant metrics and calculated the absolute difference between the value for each state and the U.S. average value.
Then, in order to calculate the overall electorate representation index (OERI), they weighted the differences between the state and the country based on each metric’s weight and calculated a score between 0 and 100, with 100 being a perfect match with the reference values.
Once that was done, states were ranked based on the values of the OERI.
Out of all 50 states, Florida ranked 13th in sociodemographic, 10th in economy, 5th in education, 1st in religion and 2nd in public opinion with a total OERI of 93.71%, putting it second in the nation, just behind Illinois, who had an OERI of 94.8%.
Their study also found that Florida was also ranked 5th for the wealth gap closest to the US reference value, 4th in educational attainment closest to the reference value, 1st in religious composition closest to the value with a tie for second in views on same-sex marriage closest to the refence value.
Other top-five states in their study included Michigan (93.37%), Arizona (92.35%) and Ohio (92.08%). Vermont ranked at the bottom (77.12%).
